New research from Elastic, the company behind Elasticsearch, reveals that 99% of UK IT decision makers believe generative AI (GenAI) can bring about transformative change within their organisations. Despite stumbling blocks such as messy data estates, search challenges, and concerns about privacy, security, regulation, and internal skills gaps, the report demonstrates a keen interest in increasing GenAI investments in 2024 and beyond.
A significant finding from the report, "The Elastic Generative AI Report: One Year On, Identifying the Impact and Challenges of Early Generative AI Implementation Worldwide," shows that 90% of IT decision makers anticipate growth in GenAI investments. The hope is these technologies will enhance operational efficiency and productivity, speed up decision-making, improve customer engagement, and strengthen security measures.
Matt Riley, GVP & General Manager of Search at Elastic, commented on the disruptive potential of GenAI, stating, "In a little more than 12 months, the disruptive potential of GenAI has shifted from reverie to reality, capturing the imaginations and budgets of IT and data leaders." He emphasised that businesses quick to adopt search powered GenAI, with security in mind and grounded by business context, will lead and reveal the insights necessary to build more resilient businesses, speed up innovation, and pioneer new customer experiences.
Jason Bloomberg, Managing Director of analyst firm Intellyx, noted that GenAI is still an emerging technology, but it already promises to disrupt how organisations operate and engage with customers and employees. He highlighted that GenAI can effectively address the data management, security, and search challenges many businesses continue to encounter.
Despite the enthusiastic response to GenAI across industries and regions, there are some concerns stifling implementation strategies. Although there is a high expectation that GenAI will enhance resource and operational efficiency and productivity, enhance customer experience, and lead to more accurate decision-making, majority of organisations in the UK anticipate an increase in budgets over the next three years. Adoption, however, is slowed mainly by fears around the security and privacy of the technologies, regulation issues, and the in-house skills gap to implement these technologies.
One area of keen interest was the potential for GenAI to transform IT security environments and threat landscapes. Almost 95% of respondents reported various IT security challenges. Still, the prevailing consensus was that GenAI could improve automated threat detection systems, automate responses to common security issues, and generate training exercises. On the other hand, holistic observability continues to be a significant operational headache, but many anticipate GenAI to automating the analysis and categorisation of data, enhance missing data handling, and improve data masking and privacy.
The research, a collaboration with independent market research specialist Vanson Bourne, questioned 300 IT decision makers and decision influencers from over a dozen sectors, included telecommunications, public service, retail, and financial services.