A new study finds that 92 percent of those surveyed in the manufacturing industry say AI is a top C-Suite priority and the same percentage agree it provides a competitive advantage.
But the report from Riverbed also shows that 69 percent are concerned about the suitability of their organization's data for AI usage, and only 42 percent rated their data as excellent for completeness and accuracy. It's notable too that 42 percent say their data quality is a barrier to further AI investment.
The next three years are anticipated to be a period of rapid expansion as enterprises seek practical AI approaches and solutions. By 2027, 83 percent of manufacturing leaders expect their organization to be fully prepared to implement their AI strategy and projects. During the same time period, AI is also expected to mature and become a growth driver.
Although today, 58 percent of leaders across manufacturing say the primary reason for using AI is to drive operational efficiencies over growth (42 percent), those numbers flip in 2027, with 65 percent of organizations saying AI will primarily be a growth driver versus driving efficiencies (35 percent).
The research shows most manufacturers have progressed beyond the stages of assessing and experimenting with AI. Currently, 56 percent are accelerating their AI strategies by investing in infrastructure and talent. In addition 29 percent of manufacturers have reached the final transformative stage where AI is fully integrated into their operations.
"AI is transforming the manufacturing industry offering significant benefits in terms of operational efficiencies, reducing costs, and the ability to innovate at a faster pace to maintain a competitive edge," says Nic Leszczynski, principal solutions engineer at Riverbed. "However, for manufacturers to deliver substantial performance improvements and improve their AIOps initiatives, they must focus on the quality of their data. Our recent study reveals that 42 percent of manufacturing leaders are concerned about the effectiveness of their organizations data for AI purposes. At Riverbed, we're helping customers in this industry overcome this data challenge with our open, AI-powered observability platform which provides practical AI that works and scales, enabling organizations to automate and drive efficiencies across their IT operations and achieve significant ROI from their IT investments and AIOps efforts."
To address their AI preparedness, 57 percent of manufacturers have formed dedicated AI teams, and 42 percent observability and/or user experience teams. 84 percent say using real data, rather than synthetic data, is crucial in AI efforts to improve the digital experience. In addition 83 percent of respondents agree that observability across all elements of IT is important to implementing their strategy.
The full survey is available from the Riverbed site.
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