Who doesn’t love a good survey? We’ve combed through a bumper crop of new surveys on AI and tech trends for 2025 to find the bottom line: Executives can’t pump the brakes on AI spending — but lousy data, security holes, and an alarming skills gap could cause serious headaches.
Let’s look at what we’ve learned from February’s batch of surveys tell us about the state of enterprise IT.
Data Woes are Dragging AI Down
Hitachi Vantara found a glaring problem — data quality. Nearly half of organizations say it’s their biggest obstacle to AI success.
Meanwhile, SoftServe piles on, revealing a whopping 58% of business leaders admit they’re operating with inaccurate data.
Exploding Budgets
IBM predicts that AI budgets will leap 52% beyond regular IT spending next year.
Cisco doubles down, find that CEOs increasingly worried they’ll fall behind competitors without substantial AI investment.
Yet, there may be trouble in paradise — Qlik says ambition massively outpaces execution, with 94% boosting AI spend but just 21% fully operationalized.
Security Alert!
Fortanix’s report rings alarms over generative AI security.
Meanwhile, malware-free, AI-driven cyberattacks surged dramatically in 2024, CrowdStrike warns, making the next phase of AI adoption a cybersecurity battleground.
NTT Data piles on, highlighting a worrisome “AI responsibility gap”—leaders are lagging on governance and ethical standards.
There’s a Governance & Skills Gap
O’Reilly points out the 2025 tech scene’s critical trend — security and governance are taking center stage amid an AI skills surge.
Gartner confirms that measuring the actual impact of AI remains tricky, with a third of Chief Data and Analytics Officers struggling with it.
Optimism Meets Reality
Despite relentless optimism around AI’s promise, Pew Research paints a sobering picture: U.S. workers feel more anxious than hopeful about AI reshaping their jobs.
The Anthropic Economic Index confirms it—industries are unevenly riding the AI wave, widening the technology divide.
Data Unification is the New Frontier
Dremio uncovers an emerging priority—86% of companies are now heavily focused on data unification, recognizing it’s key to AI readiness.
Bloomberg adds clarity: systematic strategies desperately need better data to feed hungry AI systems effectively.
Lingering Cloud Concerns
Nutanix and Wasabi both reveal cloud anxiety: Costs and complexities plague more than half of organizations trying to scale their AI operations, highlighting a looming inflection point as cloud demands intensify.
Trust Factor
SnapLogic injects some unexpected optimism: 84% of IT leaders now trust AI agents as much as (or even more than) human colleagues.
But Thoughtworks warns — adopting AI successfully demands a more thoughtful next phase.
Bottom Line
The AI train is speeding ahead, but shaky rails of data quality, cybersecurity, governance, and trust need urgent fixing. Ignore at your peril.
Companies mentioned: Anthropic, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Dremio, Fortanix, Gartner, Hitachi Vantara, IBM, Nutanix, NTT Data, O’Reilly, Pew Research, Qlik, SnapLogic, SoftServe, Thoughtworks, Wasabi
