Lenovo commissioned a new IDC research study in which it noted that business leaders and IT decision-makers believe AI will reach mainstream levels of adoption as IT budgets allocate more to its implementation.
The new global 2025 CIO Playbook – It’s Time for AI-nomics – projects that AI spending by IT decision-makers will nearly triple Y2Y, globally, in 2025. This comes, however, despite AI facing critical challenges such as murky return-on-investment and organizational readiness gaps.
Lenovo noted that 37 percent of management remain skeptical or have reservations toward AI, while nine out of 10 AI-adopting respondents said AI met expectations.
At the same time, IT leaders expect AI to account for nearly 20 percent of their 2025 technology budget, driven by accelerated GenAI adoption. While just 11 percent currently employ GenAI-powered applications, this number is expected to increase to 42 percent in the coming year. IT operations, software development and marketing are expected to witness the most GenAI influx.
“AI is a marathon and a sprint – requiring parallel efforts to move quickly to modernize systems, while ensuring the future-proofing of tech stacks,” said Ken Wong, president, Solutions & Services group, Lenovo. “Our research shows organizations need to simplify the design, deployment and integration of AI solutions to demonstrate the impact of these investments. This will instill greater confidence and fuel future investments.”
While ethical issues and biases surrounding AI and ML were cited as AI’s most complex or risky aspect, it was noted that over half of global businesses do not have an official AI governance, risk and compliance (GRC) policy. Of note, 33 percent indicated that their organizations will be developing data management capabilities in the next 12 months.
“To harness AI’s transformative power, organizations need a data-driven strategy that ensures scalability, interoperability, and tangible business outcomes,” said Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, president of Lenovo’s Infrastructure Solutions Group. “At Lenovo, we believe a hybrid approach to AI – seamlessly integrating and enabling private and public models – is essential for delivering scalable solutions, driving measurable impact and accelerating AI-powered business transformation.”
