2024 Technology Adoption

Roadmap for Data and Analytics

This survey of technology adoption timelines and risk and value drivers
highlights 36 technologies and techniques needed for AI readiness.
D&A leaders should use this research to benchmark their adoption
plans for AI-ready data, analytics and AI, and AI-ready governance.

In planning

Conversational
Piloting
user interfaces

A
I-r
ea
Foundation

dy
Natural language Synthetic data
models
generation

da
ta
Text summation Data Knowledge
AI engineering observability graphs
In
deployment
Causal AI Data-centric AI
Decision
Augmented Lakehouse
Composite AI intelligence
data and analytics

Generative analytics Augmented data

First principles experience quality solutions
(rename for
physics-informed AI) Already
A n a ly tic s a n

Active metadata
Machine learning deployed Small and
management
wide data

Federated
machine learning
Deep learning
Augmented
data catalog
d AI

Natural language
Prompt engineering processing
Digital ethics

Adaptive machine
Large-scale pretrained learning ModelOps
language model
Responsible AI
e
nc

Transformers AI TRiSM
na

Edge AI Composable
er

data and analytics

ov

g
y
ad
-re
Generative AI
Reinforcement
learning AI

Enterprise value Deployment risk Adoption phase

The value factor awarded to each technology is The risk factor awarded to each technology The adoption phase is determined by
based on the analysis of value drivers, including is based on the analysis of potential risks the current deployment plans for a majority
increased cost-efficiency, improved speed and posed, including talent unavailability, high of organizations. Technologies placed on the
agility, enabled resilience, enhanced employee or unpredictable costs, cybersecurity risk, border between phases are on the cusp of
moving into the next deployment phase.
productivity and delivery of superior capabilities technical incompatibility or architecture
to consumers. complexity, and inability to switch providers
due to vendor lock-in.

Low Medium High Low Medium High

Key take-aways

Organizations are taking a “pilot and prove” stance to being AI-ready. While
AI has taken the world by storm, organizations are still figuring out the optimal
way to leverage and embed it as part of their workflows. Of the 36 technologies
surveyed in the roadmap this year, consistent with the trend last year, 75% of
technologies are being piloted, 22% are in deployment and 3% are being planned.
It is currently projected that all the technologies in deployment are expected to
reach adoption by the end of 2024.

This is no doubt going to be challenging; data from the 2023 Gartner AI in the
Enterprise Survey reveals only an average of 48% of AI proofs of concept (POCs)
make it into production, and, on average, it takes 8.2 months to go from POC
to production. Hence, D&A leaders currently find themselves at a challenging
inflection point between piloting AI initiatives and adopting AI at scale, and the
onus is on D&A leaders and their teams to make a successful transition.

People are the biggest constraint in the people, process and technology
trifecta associated with AI-readiness. As of last year, respondents cited 44%
of the technologies were plagued by talent unavailability this year as well. It
was identified as the biggest roadblock in the adoption of these emerging
technologies. As per the 2024 Gartner Chief Data and Analytics Officers’ (CDAO)
Agenda Survey, talent recruitment and retention woes have been among the
top 3 challenges for D&A leaders over the past three years. Upskilling current
staff with generative AI (GenAI) skills is the main way advanced generative AI
organizations choose to address GenAI talent needs.

Speed and agility are the greatest value proposition for being AI-ready.
Respondents perceive that 83% of the technologies that make organizations AI-
ready have the potential to enhance speed and agility. As a secondary value factor,
81% of the technologies have also been associated with contributing to an increase
in organizations’ business value. While this may sound good, 49% of leaders highly
involved in AI report that estimating and demonstrating value from AI is their top
challenge when it comes to AI implementation. As AI becomes pervasive within
the organization, AI change management activities become all the more crucial.
Organizations that perform change management frequently experience greater
impact on business outcomes.

Organizations report to be “AI-ready” with their data. Half of the technologies

in this category are in deployment. This data can be triangulated with the 2023
Gartner AI in the Enterprise Survey, where over half of the respondents report that
their organizations’ data management capabilities are effective, and 40% of the
respondents who are responsible for business intelligence feel that data is fully
ready in their organizations for deploying AI at scale. Data management solutions
are indeed laying the foundation for organizations to achieve AI at scale.

Organizations are at the peak of piloting analytics and AI. A majority of

technologies in this category are still being piloted. Only about 20%
of organizations were classified to be advanced in technologies like GenAI,
which has witnessed a huge impetus in recent times, courtesy
of improvements in large language models’ capabilities.

Among advanced GenAI organizations, technical implementation and getting

the talent needed are the top barriers in implementing GenAI. The top way to
fulfill GenAI use cases is to embed it into existing applications. Upskilling current
staff with GenAI skills and creating new roles are the main ways advanced GenAI
organizations choose to address GenAI talent needs.

AI-ready governance seems nascent at this point. About 80% of the

technologies in this category are being piloted. This trend is bound to drastically
change in the coming year, as the budget authority for AI privacy, security and/
or risk has shifted from lines of business, risk/privacy office and legal counsel
to the chief technology officers’ and data and analytics’ jurisdictions. This
should translate to greater adoption and deployment of governance and risk
management technologies by CDAOs and their teams.

Successful organizations don’t look at governance as mere compliance, and

as a trade-off between risk and return, but rather as a means to generate more
impactful business outcomes. AI privacy breaches and security incidents are
reported to have fallen from 41% in 2021 to 29% in 2023. Therefore, sound
governance enables organizations to innovate and take optimal risks through
effective management of downside risk.

Actionable, objective insight

Explore these additional complimentary resources and tools for data and analytics leaders:

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Source: Gartner
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