The dawn of the autonomous enterprise is on the horizon
90% of IT decision-makers plan to deploy more automation, including AI, in the next 12 months, according to Digitate.
IT leaders embrace AI-powered automation
26% of respondents plan to implement machine-operated tasks that require limited human input or fully transition to autonomous systems in the next five years. That said, keeping humans in the loop will also remain critical, as 30% reported their organization will have an equal proportion of automation and human processing.
“IT leaders have long known that AI-powered automation is essential for survival in a digitally driven economy. The research showed most companies realize this and are taking urgent action to increase investments in this area,” said Avi Bhagtani, CMO of Digitate. “The difference is that now enterprises are embracing AI and automation to improve business KPIs, and enhance employee productivity as well as customer satisfaction, thereby accelerating their path to the autonomous enterprise.
44% of respondents report the biggest internal challenge is growing IT complexity due to cloud migration and adoption. 92% of respondents reported they already have a multi-vendor cloud strategy or are planning to move to one. As a result, 67% of IT leaders plan to implement additional IT automation in the next 12 months.
AI’s impact on the workforce
Most organizations are focusing automation efforts first in the IT department (90%), with finance (89%) and customer support (89%) also planning to automate processes in the next 12 months. Enterprises report experimenting with different types of automation as well: 74% of organizations have experimented with generative AI, followed by workflow automation (68%) and AIOps (65%).
This speed to implement automation raises questions about the future of the workforce; when asked about top concerns for deploying automation in their organizations, one in four (26%) of IT leaders said that the main drawback to automation is the perception of workplace insecurity and job redundancy for employees. Paradoxically, 60% of the IT decision-makers stated that implementing automation in their organization led to both improved employee satisfaction and increased productivity.
54% of IT decision-makers see cybersecurity as the biggest external risk for their organization over the next 12 months, even more than the recession (36%). However, only 38% have deployed automation to address cybersecurity risks, while 49% of respondents plan to implement some form of automation within six months.