With AI interest growing at breakneck speed, a race to be an early adopter is afoot.
Enterprises hope that their early adoption of AI will give them more time to enjoy AI enhancements over their competitors and thus gain an edge in increasingly tight competition.
Indeed, a new study from Cisco surveyed 2,500+ CEOs from companies with 250+ employees worldwide, has shed light on the growing urgency among CEOs to integrate AI into their operations.
While the study highlighted that four out of five CEOs recognise AI's potential, over 70% fear losing ground in this race due to gaps in IT knowledge or network infrastructure, and only 1.7% feel fully prepared to implement AI.
The Race to be First
The idea of being early adopters has always been an enticing one for businesses.
By offering that which your competitors do not, you can give yourself a USP.
Equally, it can position you for uses that come with a surge of new needs. For instance, when the pandemic came, Zoom saw a surge in popularity.
Although created in 2011 and not the only video conferencing solution on the market, Zoom had significant features that other platforms lacked, like waiting rooms, the ability to play audio from sites, whiteboards, mute all, and more.
Although other platforms then raced to catch up, once users were set up and used to Zoom, winning over users became more difficult than keeping them.
Indeed, the Cisco study highlighted that more than half of respondents reported seeing competitive losses from underinvestment in technology.
The Issues Plaguing Adoption
Although not aimed specifically at UC, the issues CEOs felt were hindering AI adoption broadly highlight what is generally a problem with adoption in the UC sphere.
When combined with AI, UC systems become smarter and more adaptive, automating workflows, providing actionable insights, and enhancing collaboration.
However, as Cisco's research highlights, many organisations are held back by infrastructure gaps and a lack of expertise.
