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CIO vision 2025: Bridging the gap between BI and AI

Companies are eager to revamp their BI and leverage AI to increase efficiency and spark innovation, but data foundations increasingly become the bottleneck. See how executives approach those challenges and how they envision the world of data, analytics and AI in 2025.

In a survey of 600 CIOs, CDOs and CTOs from 14 industries and 18 countries globally, plus interviews with C-level executives from Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Cummins, CNH Industrial, Walgreens Boots Alliance, S&P Global, Marks & Spencer, Tokio Marine, Virgin Australia and Freshworks, MIT Technology Review Insights uncovered these key findings:

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94% of CIOs say they are already using AI in LOB, and more than half expect AI to be widespread by 2025

In 2022, IT (67%) and Finance (54%) are the two core functions leading in AI adoption.

By 2025, IT (71%), Supply Chain (68%) and Product Development (67%) expect to adopt AI widely.

Figure 1: The extent of AI use in core functions of the business, today and expected in 2025 (% of respondents)

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By 2025, CIOs expect revenue boost to be the most tangible benefit gained from AI

Figure 2: Ranking of the most tangible areas of benefit from AI use today, and expected in 2025 (% of respondents)

“AI helps P&G to shorten product development time thanks to simulation and modeling, enable more granular consumer research, and close the loop between product innovation and consumer feedback. This will ultimately translate into top-line gains.”

– Vittorio Cretella, CIO, Procter & Gamble

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AI and data strategies are intertwined

78% of CIOs say scaling AI to create business value is the top priority of their enterprise data strategy, and 96% of AI leaders agree.

Figure 3: Data strategy and scaling AI (% of respondents agreeing with the statement)

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Almost every AI leader is seeking to unify the data platform for analytics and AI

72% of CIOs say that data challenges are the biggest factor jeopardizing AI success.

68% of CIOs and 99% of AI leaders say platform unification is crucial.

Figure 4: The importance of a unified data platform (% of respondents agreeing with the statement)

“Data is one of the biggest challenges we face in scaling AI, all the way from data acquisition to ingesting data, to managing it, and to ensuring the quality of the data.”

– Rowena Yeo, CTO and Global Vice President, Johnson & Johnson

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Multicloud and open standards are integral to AI success

72% of CIOs are using multicloud and 92% of AI leaders believe it ensures strategic flexibility.

“Open source standards and the ability to integrate cloud services across providers is important to our efforts to fully embed AI and machine learning in our business.”

– Mike Maresca, Global CTO, Walgreens Boots Alliance

How to future-proof

The research points to these key attributes to instill in your data and technology foundations: openness, multicloud, democratization. An open and unified platform like the Databricks Lakehouse Platform makes it possible to scale AI efficiently — and ultimately, create business value.