A survey by GFT Technologies and Wakefield Research involving 945 CIOs and CTOs from 19 countries reveals that 84% of organizations have canceled AI pilot projects due to legacy infrastructure limitations. Companies with annual revenues exceeding $500 million struggle to integrate modern AI models with outdated databases and codebases, turning AI adoption into a complex system modernization task.
Security concerns are widespread, with 93% of IT executives citing risks when running AI on legacy systems. Furthermore, 89% of respondents fear that AI investments are outpacing actual business value. In the US, this sentiment is stronger, as 92.1% of IT leaders report that AI spending exceeds generated value, compared to 80.6% in the EMEA region.
The pressure on leadership is intensifying, with 47% of US IT executives fearing that poor AI scaling decisions could jeopardize their careers. Additionally, 93.3% of US respondents suspect that some public companies use AI as a pretext for layoffs to boost stock prices. GFT CEO Rishi Chohan notes that most firms lack a dedicated infrastructure roadmap to support their AI ambitions.
