Majority of senior tech staff have yet to introduce AI into their organisations

Survey found 62% of senior technology staff said they were not yet investing in AI technologies and did not have an AI-related strategy in place

OpenAI has been at the forefront of AI-related technology but a new survey shows there is still a hesitancy to implement such tools. 

A majority of tech leaders in Ireland have not yet moved to introduce AI into their organisations, despite recognising the potential the technology has, a new survey has found.

According to a survey of 150 senior technology workers based in Ireland, conducted by the accounting and consulting firm EY, 62% said they were not yet investing in AI technologies and did not have an AI-related strategy in place.

This comes as major tech companies, with major operations based in Ireland, such as Meta, Microsoft, and Google, pivot towards developing AI-related products.

The survey shows there has been a slow adoption of some of the most prevalent uses of AI. Just 13% of those surveyed said they were developing or had already developed their own large language models and/or GenAI tools.

In addition, 6% said their organisation had a formal policy on acceptable usage of unlicensed AI tools. Almost one in five, 18%, said generative AI tools were prohibited outright, while 59% of tech leaders said unlicensed generative AI was most likely being used by their employees, but no formal usage policy is in place.

Head of technology consulting at EY Ireland Ronan Walsh said while the “growing interest in AI is clear”, its research shows a large majority of organisations had yet to turn this interest into “concrete action”.

Cybersecurity was identified as the top issue for tech leaders, with 38% reporting it was their most significant challenge —  up 4% from last year.

Elevated cyber risks and management of data protection and flows were identified by 61% of respondents as a critical challenge, up from 53% in 2023.

Difficulty in attracting and retaining staff was the next biggest issue identified, at 37% of those surveyed, with 27% saying there was a shortage of skilled employees to implement new technology.