There's a paradox emerging at the centre of AI development. While adoption continues to accelerate – with 78% of organisations now using AI in at least one business function – recent MIT research found that 95% of GenAI pilots fail to deliver returns, exposing a stark divide between successful and stalled AI initiatives.
At Nasuni's Unify Dallas session, I had the opportunity to discuss the AI market, how IGXGlobal can help customers in determining AI maturity for organisations, and the essential elements for an effective AI Security strategy.
AI: A Landscape in Flux
ePlus' AI Readiness survey 2025 revealed that 74.8% of IT professionals plan to implement GenAI within the next 12 months, with trending areas including AI copilots, contact centre automation, and AI-driven security.
But undermining this momentum, Gartner predicts that 30% of GenAI projects will be abandoned after Proof of Concept (POC) by the end of 2025. Our survey confirmed that skills gaps, costs, and security worries are the biggest barriers to adoption.
How to Overcome Barriers and Get Started
Like any other journey, you have to know where you are and where you want to go, before you begin. As organisations navigate changing technology landscapes, including AI, they need to understand where they are exactly (their current state and AI maturity level) and what tools they can leverage to move toward the outcomes they desire.
When it comes to AI, the journey stages as IGXGlobal recognises them are defined below:
- AI Curious: Organisations at this stage are exploring AI possibilities but without a defined strategy. They have limited AI experience and may struggle with data silos.
- AI Ready: These organisations have an established data and AI strategy, with clearly defined AI use cases. They're ready to build an AI-optimised infrastructure to accelerate business outcomes.
- AI Mature: These are advanced adopters for whom AI is a core driver of innovation. Organisations at this stage are already building GenAI applications that are continuously optimising for capability and cost.
According to the AI Readiness survey 2025 mentioned earlier, there was a mixed response from participants in terms of where they are in their AI journey. Almost 43 percent of organisations identified as AI Curious (42.6%), just over 28% identified as AI Ready (28.2%) and more than 24% identified as AI Mature (24.3%). Only around 4.9% of respondents are yet to begin their AI Journey.
Wherever your organisation is on the scale, strategic planning is key. Some of the ways IGXGlobal helps clients move from curious to ready to mature include:
- AI Envisioning Workshop: Helps customers identify use cases and develop their AI strategy.
- Use Case Development: Helps organisations align with their business objectives as they fully explore two or more top use cases.
- AI Policy and Governance: Perform data governance gap analysis, understanding ethical and regulatory AI considerations.
- Data Strategy: Data is the foundation for AI. This service helps organisations develop a modern data strategy that breaks down silos, aligns with specific AI goals, and ensures alignment of business initiatives and data governance.
- Proof of Concept: Helps customers with Proof-of-Concept platform selection and deployment, as well as measure and iterate and report on success metrics. With a clear AI strategy and plan, organisations have a roadmap to move forward. But they must not overlook the guardrails needed for AI use and data protection.
Breaking Down AI Security and Governance
AI introduces additional risk, privacy, and liability concerns. Organisations must ensure their policy and technology can provide the necessary governance and oversight that is required.
It's not surprising that regulation concerns remain top of mind for IT leaders, with 78.2% of respondents on the IGXGlobal readiness survey only somewhat to moderately confident in their ability to regulate access to and governance of GenAI applications.
To help build confidence, apply these three lenses when looking at AI Security:
- Process: Build your AI security policies and procedures and establish your AI governance structure. Data is the foundation for your AI initiatives. Performing a data risk assessment can help to determine your current state and facilitate the next step.
- People: Ensure that your employees are trained to recognise and defend against AI threats by updating your training program to reflect AI risks. Make sure you put appropriate access controls in place across your organisation.
- Technology: From a technology perspective, determine tools to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from AI related incidents.
Our Partnership: Your Data and Security Strategy
All sustainable AI projects share one trait: they successfully balance innovation with risk management and regulatory compliance.
The IGXGlobal and Nasuni partnership blends the best of our strengths, combining AI consultancy and SecOps solutions with scalable, high-performance, AI-ready data infrastructure to help you ace that balancing act.
To learn more about how IGXGlobal and Nasuni can help you with your AI journey, visit Unleash AI's Full Potential or click here to contact an IGXGlobal AI Security expert today.