AI spending surges past security as top priority for enterprises in 2024

AI Takes Center Stage in Enterprise Investment Priorities: A recent IDC study reveals that artificial intelligence has surpassed security and cloud deployment as the top investment priority for enterprises in 2024, signaling a significant shift in business technology focus.

Key findings from the survey:

• 73% of midsize and large enterprises are using or planning to use AI within the next 12 months to enhance customer engagement
• This percentage rises to 81% for large enterprises specifically
• Manufacturing leads AI adoption at 84%, followed by financial services (78%), technology/software/gaming (77%), health care (68%), and retail (67%)

Expected benefits of AI implementation:

• Improved operating efficiency
• Enhanced customer support through agent-assist tools and intelligent chatbots

Additional investment priorities:

• Cloud services for on-demand provisioning and elastic scaling
• Security solutions to protect data across cloud and edge locations
• Network enhancements for multi-cloud connectivity and ease of use

Digital transformation progress:

• Most enterprises are still in the early stages of their digital transformation journey
• Only 32% report full implementation
• Large enterprises are leading the digital transformation efforts

Challenges in implementing digital infrastructure:

• Lack of external IT partners
• Internal skills gap
• Lack of buy-in from the C-suite
• Budget constraints
• Rapid provisioning and ease of network/IT management

Broader implications: The shift towards prioritizing AI investments over traditional areas like security and cloud deployment indicates a growing recognition of AI’s potential to drive business value and competitive advantage. However, the challenges identified in the study suggest that many organizations may struggle to fully capitalize on AI’s potential without addressing fundamental issues in their digital infrastructure and organizational readiness.