08 Jun Veeam Software finds stark AI gap in enterprises

Veeam® Software revealed its new global research, showing a widening gap at the heart of enterprise AI.

It found that while 88 per cent of organisations are already using or piloting AI agents, only 7per cent qualify as truly AI-ready and 95 per cent say data challenges have already slowed their AI progress.

“Most organisations don’t have an AI adoption problem; they have an AI trust problem,” said Anand Eswaran, CEO of Veeam. “The first phase of AI was defined by infrastructure investment, experimentation, and acceleration. The next phase will be defined by trust. With the widespread adoption of autonomous AI agents operating at machine speed, the question transitions from whether you can use AI, to whether you can ensure all your data is secure, governed, compliant and resilient. And should something go wrong, can you recover with precision? That’s how you accelerate safe AI at scale without accelerating reputational and operational risk.”

The research also uncovers a significant perception gap between the boardroom and the operational teams responsible for delivering AI outcomes.

For example:

· 65 per cent of CEOs believe they have a full AI inventory, compared with just 48 per cent of technical leaders.

· 52 per cent of CEOs believe they actively lead on data, but only 41 per cent of CISOs and 38 per cent of CIOs agree.

· 48 per cent of CEOs believe trusted, secure, and compliant data could unlock more than 25 per cent revenue growth.

· 83 per cent of CEOs feel pressure to accelerate their AI and data capabilities.

“The findings here leave no room for doubt. When 95% of executives say data challenges are already slowing their AI progress, the bottleneck isn’t the model – it’s trusted, governed, recoverable data,” added Eswaran. “Veeam is building the Data and AI Trust layer to give enterprises the visibility, control and precision recovery needed to scale AI safely and deliver real business value.”