Number of Irish executives believing AI to be overrated is falling rapidly
Portland, OR, USA - Sep 1, 2024: ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity app icons are seen on a Google Pixel smartphone. AI competition concepts.
There has been a considerable shift in the perception of artificial intelligence by Irish SMEs over the past six months, with a sharp drop in the number of firms branding the technology "over-rated".
According to Grant Thornton’s International Business Report (IBR), which provides insights into the attitudes of 10,000 mid-market businesses across 32 countries, the proportion of Irish executives who believed AI was mostly hype has plunged from 45% to 23%, signalling a decisive move from hype to hands-on adoption.
Over the same period, firms have hurried to put rules in place with more than half now requiring staff to follow an AI-usage policy when using Gen AI, such as ChatGPT. This is a sharp increase from 37% just six months ago. Nevertheless, enthusiasm is tempered by a persistent concern over data security. Six in ten of the executives surveyed say they worry about employees entering sensitive information into generative-AI platforms.
"Executives are no longer debating whether the technology is ‘over-hyped’," Shane O’Neill, Technology and Digital Consulting Partner, Grant Thornton, said. "Over the past six months, we’ve heard that Irish mid-size businesses are shifting from cautious experimentation to confident deployment of AI."
"They’re writing policies, training staff and embedding tools into day-to-day operations. That practical focus is driving productivity gains, particularly in data analysis, customer support and internal knowledge-sharing."
The research also reveals a sharp improvement in companies’ ability to spot practical applications for AI. Only a fifth (22%) of mid-sized companies now cite “difficulty determining productive uses” as a challenge, down from almost half (48%) six months ago. At the same time, privacy has surged to become the leading barrier to adoption of AI tools. 58% of Irish executives noted privacy as the key challenge their organisation faces in adopting AI (up from 35%, six months previous). This underlines a real paradox: businesses are more confident in AI’s potential, yet more anxious about how it handles information.
“But optimism alone won’t close the trust gap. Until organisations can guarantee that sensitive data fed into AI systems remains secure and compliant, adoption will continue to bump against serious privacy concerns. We believe the winners here will be those firms that treat governance and transparency as strategically important: investing in building clear policies and communicating openly with employees and customers about how information is used.”
