New Research from Elastic Finds Conversational Search Could Yield Staggering Productivity Returns
March 26 2024 - 11:15AM
Business Wire
Nearly half (44%) of global IT decision-makers
believe search powered generative AI could save employees at least
two days per week
New research by Elastic (NYSE: ESTC), the company behind
Elasticsearch®, found nearly all (99%) global IT decision makers,
regardless of region or industry, recognize generative AI’s (GenAI)
transformative potential to influence change within their
organizations. However, early adoption continues to be slowed by
chaotic data estates, search challenges, and fears around privacy
and security, regulation, and internal skills gaps.
Despite these headwinds, the report - The Elastic Generative
AI Report: One Year On, Identifying the Impact and Challenges of
Early Generative AI Implementation Worldwide - found most IT
decision makers (88%) are eyeing increased investments in GenAI in
2024 and beyond. This points to optimism that these technologies
are poised to drive operational efficiencies and productivity,
accelerate decision-making, improve customer engagement, and
bolster security postures.
“In a little more than 12 months, the disruptive potential of
GenAI has shifted from reverie to reality, capturing the
imaginations and budgets of IT and data leaders,” said Matt
Riley, GVP & General Manager of Search at Elastic. “While
data may fuel this technology, search is the engine that powers its
effectiveness. Unsurprisingly, businesses that adopt search-powered
GenAI quickest - grounded by business context - will lead and
uncover the insights needed to securely innovate, build more
efficient businesses, and pioneer new customer experiences.”
“Generative AI is still an emerging technology, but it already
promises to disrupt how organizations operate and engage with
customers and employees,” said Jason Bloomberg, Managing
Director of analyst firm Intellyx. “In particular, GenAI is
transforming the data management, security, and search challenges
many businesses continue to face. Thoughtful application of this
new technology will help them better anticipate customer needs and
differentiate themselves from their competition.”
Key Findings
There’s high enthusiasm for GenAI across regions and
industries, but key concerns stifle operationalization
strategies
- Across verticals, GenAI is poised to deliver tangible benefits
for organizations
- More than half of respondents (57%) anticipate it will improve
resource (i.e., staff time, better costs) and operational
efficiency and productivity, improve customer experience (50%), and
lead to more accurate decision-making (48%)
- However, despite early interest and planned investment,
internal and external roadblocks threaten to slow GenAI adoption
- Nearly 9 of 10 organizations anticipate budgets for GenAI will
increase over the next three years, despite nearly all respondents
reporting adoption is being slowed, primarily by fears around the
security and privacy of the technologies (40%), regulation issues
(37%), and the skills gap to implement the technologies in house
(36%)
- While a skills gap may continue to slow GenAI adoption, 4 of 10
respondents believe it will eventually help upskill and educate
employees
Siloed data ecosystems continue to expand in size and
complexity, complicating security, visibility, and real-time
analysis
- Most organizations continue to struggle to get relevant
insights from their data, which leads to sluggish decision-making
- Unsurprisingly, 3 of 4 (75%) respondents report the ability to
view data across their entire environment is a key challenge for
their organizations, while 7 of 10 (68%) report critical decisions
are stalled by slow analysis of their organization’s data
- While search powered GenAI is recognized as a key to unlocking
transformative insights, effective search capabilities remain
stunted
- Nearly all respondents (97%) believe a conversational search
experience would make their organizations more productive, and
nearly half (44%) believe their organizations could save an average
of two days or more per week per employee
- The majority of organizations (94%) face data search challenges
driven by a struggle to use search results effectively (45%), the
inability to cover multiple sources of information (44%), and the
inability to obtain responses quickly enough (42%)
Despite evolving IT infrastructures and data estates, there’s
optimism GenAI will illuminate security and observability
blindspots
- IT security environments and threat landscapes have never been
more complex, but there’s confidence GenAI will alleviate many
challenges
- Nearly all organizations (97%) face IT security challenges,
from the ability to detect and respond to threats quickly to
maintaining current and relevant security practices, but nearly all
respondents anticipate GenAI will bolster security postures, such
as improving automated threat detection systems (53%), generating
training exercises (50%), and automating responses to common
security problems (49%)
- Holistic observability remains a significant operational pain
point, but GenAI offers hope
- Nearly all organizations (95%) report observability challenges,
from data silos to more complex applications, but nearly all
respondents are confident GenAI would benefit their observability
postures, specifically to enhance missing data handling (48%),
improve data masking and privacy (43%), and to conduct rigorous and
regular data quality assessments with synthetic data (43%)
The report was produced in conjunction with independent market
research specialist Vanson Bourne, and solicited 3,200 IT decision
makers and decision influencers across the U.S., Europe, and
Asia-Pacific from more than a dozen sectors, including
telecommunications, public service, retail, and financial
services.
To uncover more insights, download the report and take the quiz
to see where you are in your generative AI adoption journey.
About Elastic
Elastic (NYSE: ESTC), the leading search analytics company,
securely harnesses search powered AI to enable everyone to find the
answers they need in real-time using all their data, at scale.
Elastic’s solutions for security, observability and search are
built on the Elasticsearch platform, the development platform used
by thousands of companies, including more than 50% of the Fortune
500. Learn more at elastic.co
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Alexia Russell Elastic Global PR PR-Team@elastic.co
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