New research from Rackspace Technology reveals a widening gap between early AI adopters and organisations still defining their strategy.
Acceleration gap
The global study, titled 'The AI Acceleration Gap', focused on the disparity in AI adoption rates between early adopters and organisations still formulating their AI strategies. It surveyed 1,400 IT decision-makers, including 269 from APAC.
It found that just 13% qualify as “AI Leaders”, organisations that have embedded AI into their core strategy and are scaling at three times the rate of their peers.
“While nearly every organisation is exploring how to implement AI, these forward-thinking companies are not waiting for the technology to mature; they have acted early,” said Srini Koushik, president of AI, Technology and Sustainability at Rackspace. “Now, as others remain in the experimentation phase, these leaders are confidently scaling their initiatives and securing a lasting competitive advantage.”
AI leaders
AI Leaders are outperforming their peers across all key metrics, including customer experience, productivity, innovation, and time-to-market. 95% report full organisational alignment on AI, and 75% have fully trained teams.
AI investment surged globally from $2.5 million to $8.7 million, with APAC leading at $11.3 million. “Organisations are no longer treating AI as a future bet,” said Adhil Badat, managing director for APJ. “It’s becoming a core part of their strategy today.”
Challenges
Customer experience remains the top KPI (51%), and cybersecurity emerged as both a challenge and a top use case. Still, 72% in APAC cite difficulties scaling AI.
With two-thirds of AI Leaders reporting substantial benefits, Rackspace notes that those entering the AI adoption loop early will reap exponential returns and long-term growth.
