Industry maintains cautious optimism about AI

Solarwinds study reflects major trends across the sector

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Published: Wed 26 Jun 2024, 5:22 PM

Last updated: Wed 26 Jun 2024, 6:20 PM

While many across the Europe, Middle East and Africa are enthusiastic about AI’s ability to boost productivity, there are valid concerns around data quality, security, regulation, and more, research shows.

According to the 2024 IT Trends Report, AI: Friend or Foe? by Solarwinds, overall, the industry’s sentiment reflects cautious optimism about AI despite the obstacles. Almost half of IT professionals (43 per cent) want their company to move faster in implementing AI despite costs, challenges, and concerns, but only 34 per cent are very confident that their company’s databases can meet the increased needs of AI. Moreover, only a third (33 per cent) are very trusting of the quality of data or training used in developing AI technologies.

“But the fact that nearly nine in ten respondents say they expect AI to positively impact their company shows there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle,” Abdul Rehman Tariq Butt, Regional Director – Middle East, SolarWinds, said.

So, if the increased utilisation of AI in enterprises is an inevitability, what needs to be done?

“First is to ensure that key stakeholders are on board. This could be the employees who will have to utilise an AI solution on a daily basis. Or it could be customers who instead of interacting with a human, might now be presented with an AI assistant. The good news is that in EMEA, we found that 52 per cent of companies believe that their employees are well-prepared and understand AI, while 42 per cent believe that while employees are not trained yet, they could learn how to use it,” Butt said.

The other aspect of effective implementation is having the right guardrails in place. “Consider the wildly popular ChatGPT service. Multiple studies have shown that large portions of the UAE’s workforce use this on at least a weekly basis. This doesn’t necessarily mean that this usage is approved and regulated by their organization, which then offers potential for unintentional but highly impactful data leaks. Fortunately, it’s evident businesses in the EMEA recognise this challenge and 61 per cent have now developed internal frameworks to address concerns related to AI implementation,” Butt said.

Abdul Rehman Tariq Butt, Regional Director - Middle East at SolarWinds. — Supplied picture

For AI to be of benefit to organisations, it must be dependable and trustworthy, Butt stressed. “While job displacement routinely makes headlines, in our analysis of reasons why people in the EMEA have had negative experiences with AI, we actually found the top reasons related to privacy, algorithmic errors, and security risks. These challenges are especially concerning to organisations as they can translate into devasting impact on the business like the exposure of sensitive customer information. AI hallucinations — instances where an AI generates incorrect or nonsensical information with high confidence — have already been shown to cause impact. A now famous example of this was a popular airline being held liable for the misinformation regarding discounts that it’s chatbot provided to a customer,” Butt said.

The Solarwinds’ study found that the vast majority of regional respondents (87 per cent) support increased government regulation of AI. And here too, security (67 per cent), combatting misinformation (60 per cent) and privacy issues (60 per cent) were far more prominent concerns for respondents than potential job displacement (32 per cent).

A major challenges for organisations is to work towards data security without compromising ethics. “Evolving government regulation will no doubt have a role to play in achieving this desirable outcome. At SolarWinds, we advocate the use of advanced security tools such as log management, access rights management, and automated threat detection, which can protect data while minimizing human error and potential bias. Additionally, regular training and awareness programs should be implemented to help staff understand the ethical implications of data handling, fostering a culture of responsibility and ethical behaviour. By integrating these practices with a strong commitment to ethical standards into their AI programs, organisations can work to strike the balance between robust data security without sacrificing ethical considerations,” Butt said.

Krishna Sai, SVP of Engineering at SolarWinds

“While talk of AI has dominated the industry, IT leaders and teams recognize the outsize risks of the still-developing technology, heightened by the rush to build AI quickly rather than smartly,” said Krishna Sai, SVP, Technology and Engineering at SolarWinds. “With the proper internal systems in place and by prioritizing security, fairness, and transparency while building AI, these technologies can serve as a valuable advisor and coworker to overworked teams, but this survey shows that IT pros need to be consulted as their companies invest in AI.”