AI and business outcomes: Are you an optimist or a realist?

Businesses today face a tough balance: innovate at speed, without losing control of cost, risk, or continuity. At SoftwareOne Summit on 23 October, we’ll show you how to do both.

For IT leaders today, everything is urgent, and nothing is simple.

Boardroom expectations for AI are rising as fast as models are advancing, and the pressure is on to turn promise into tangible value. Every step forward in capability makes it clearer how AI-powered organizations will outcompete rivals on cost, service and customer experience. The potential rewards for being ambitious, thinking big and embracing automation and insights with AI are therefore great.

However, meeting these expectations is not easy. On top of delivering the solutions themselves, IT leaders need to urgently address dependencies like ageing infrastructure and fragmented data. Simultaneously, they must take measures to tackle growing operational, security and compliance risks, and help lines of business adapt to change. They need to maintain a workplace environment that is attractive for talent, with the right culture, working practices and tools. And, on top of all this, continue to run day-to-day IT operations.

It’s everything, everywhere, all at once – there’s little wonder that according to one extreme estimate, 95% of AI projects are now stalling.

A dose of reality

At the heart of the overall challenge for IT leaders lies a fundamental truth: priorities are infinite, but resources are finite.

All of AI’s many imperatives – modernizing infrastructure, deploying solutions, empowering talent, adapting processes, securing data and maintaining regulatory compliance – require attention, effort and budget.

Add into the equation the rising costs of “keeping the lights on” due to increasing supplier prices, and it’s clear why 48% of mid-sized companies are unsure how they’ll fund the next round of innovation. Budgets are being stretched to the limit, teams are at capacity and skills are in short supply.

Among all the expectation with AI, the requirements of the future are colliding with the realities of today. Something has got to give.

The case for optimism

While these realities are unavoidable for most businesses, there is a way forward.

The many challenges faced by IT leaders today are often inter-connected, and strategic investment in key areas can ease multiple pressures at once.

Modern cloud infrastructure not only improves performance and capability but also provides tools that can help intelligently address data, security and compliance issues. The latest digital workplace solutions are not just an interface for AI-powered collaboration, but also a platform for the organizational guardrails needed to control risk. Intelligent ITAM tooling will not only reduce waste but also enable you to minimize cyber-attack surface, and the risks of shadow IT.

Today’s challenges are therefore not mere obstacles; they are a guide and accelerant for transformation. They provide a crystal-clear case for strategic investment that will relieve current cost and resource pressures, freeing up headroom for further innovation.

But the question remains – with budgets at their limit, how do organizations make the initial investment to kickstart this virtuous cycle?

Be realistic and expect the amazing

The solution may lie closer than you think. According to research, 46% of organizations say their current software and cloud costs are too high, showing widespread potential for savings.

Optimizing spending across the board, whether by consolidating apps, cutting unused licenses, negotiating better contracts, retiring legacy infrastructure, or getting more value from cloud with FinOps, can add up to considerable savings.

Critically, those funds must be reinvested into strategic solutions that solve the root causes of today’s pressures. This means investing in scalable cloud capabilities, automating security and compliance, adopting applications that enhance governance and funding game-changing AI initiatives. If these savings are simply returned to the business, capabilities will stagnate, liabilities will grow, and long-term costs will bounce back to unsustainable levels.

Organizations must therefore optimize to innovate, capturing momentum from efficiencies through reinvestment. Our research proves that companies that master this approach achieve superior business outcomes – they are twice as likely to report improved ROI, are quicker to market, and are more profitable.

In short, the route to the most optimistic AI outcomes lies in hard-nosed realism. By mastering the liabilities within your current IT estate you can fuel a virtuous cycle of optimization and innovation that will help you succeed, where others may fail.