UK tech executives confident in AI skills but ROI concerns persist

IT consultancy Zartis has launched a new AI survey in collaboration with Censuswide, revealing that most UK tech executives are confident in their companies' AI skills but are divided on the return on investment (ROI) from AI initiatives.

The research indicates that 85% of UK tech executives rate their workforce's combined AI knowledge and expertise as skilled, with over half (51%) assessing it as highly skilled. Despite this confidence, several barriers to AI adoption were highlighted, including budget restrictions (41%), a shortage of AI talent (38%), and technical complexity (35%).

Notably, nearly every UK tech executive (94%) reported that their organisation uses AI in some form. However, motivations behind AI adoption vary, with 40% of executives feeling industry-wide pressures to prioritise AI investment.

Michal Szymczak, Head of AI Strategy at Zartis, commented, "AI adoption isn't some on or off switch. For many businesses, it involves a significant financial investment, and there are complex questions to grapple with surrounding data privacy and integration with existing technology stacks. That makes executives' confidence in their companies' AI skill set rather ironic. They puff their chests out while simultaneously pointing to all the obstacles that could stop them in their tracks. That feels like a severe underestimation of how much work needs to happen to make AI capabilities work with software development and DevOps practices."

Diverging views on AI's financial impact were evident, with 42% of executives citing ROI uncertainty as a primary concern, while 53% see long-term cost savings as a significant benefit of AI adoption. Cost savings were the most popular response when executives were asked about AI's benefits to their business.

AI investment plans for 2024 were also disclosed, with 93% of respondents intending to spend at least GBP £100,000 on AI capabilities. Almost half (44%) plan to invest at least GBP £500,000, and 25% anticipate spending at least GBP £1,000,000. Only 1% of the respondents expect to invest more than GBP £2,000,000.

The survey indicated that software development is the top area for AI investment, with 59% of executives planning to channel funds into this sector in 2024. Other popular areas include quality assurance and DevOps and automation, both at 44%. This aligns with the challenges organisations face in their software development teams such as skills shortage and talent acquisition (46%), quality assurance and testing (40%), and continuous integration and deployment (40%).

Looking into long-term savings, 56% of executives believe AI will reduce software development costs by at least 20%, though 36% expect lower savings. "I think what will become clear over time is who's investing into AI for the sake of it, and who's doing it for the genuine betterment of their business," said Angel Benito, CTO at Zartis. "There's clearly a lot of pressure on organisations to keep up with AI development or get left behind, which would explain why so many are making the investment despite the uncertainty about the ROI. They must understand that it's not about the tools; it's about doing that deep-dive due diligence work into identifying and understanding where and how the tools will make employees at their organisations more productive."

Asked how they plan to use AI to address challenges within their software development teams, executives highlighted AI-powered copilot tools for coding (53%), improved continuous integration and deployment (52%), and enhanced team communication and collaboration (46%) as top utilities.

The survey results follow earlier findings from Zartis showing that over three-quarters of UK tech executives favour more government oversight on AI. A majority expressed satisfaction with current global government coordination of AI regulation, with many anticipating benefits from the EU AI Act.