Artificial intelligence report: Taking Irish organisations from experimentation to impact
Artificial intelligence (AI) is firmly embedded in our day to day lives. In Ireland, 73 per cent of professionals are aware of GenAI tools, and nearly half have used them1. Deloitte’s State of Generative AI in the Enterprise Q4 report2 shows that while companies see returns on GenAI investments, scaling them is challenging.
This report highlights six key findings.
1. There is a speed limit: GenAI continues to advance at incredible speed. However, most organisations are moving at the speed of change in their organisation and not the speed of the technology.
2. Barriers are evolving: Significant barriers to scaling and value creation exist, with these challenges increasing over the past year due to regulatory uncertainty and only moderate levels of trust in the accuracy of GenAI outputs hampering adoption and creating hesitancies to move forward.
3. Some users are outpacing others: GenAI is further along in some areas than others with IT, cybersecurity, operations, marketing and customer service showing strong adoption.
4. The focus is on core business value: A strategic shift is emerging from technology catch up to competitive differentiation with GenAI.
5. The C-Suite sees things differently: CxOs tend to express a rosier view of their GenAI investments and underestimate how easily GenAI barriers can be addressed.
6. Agentic AI is here: GenAI powered systems having “agency” to orchestrate complex workflows, coordinate tasks with other agents and execute tasks without human intervention represents a breakthrough innovation that may unlock the full potential of GenAI.
These findings ring true when we see that many Irish businesses continue to struggle to move beyond small, fragmented AI initiatives, with pilots remining locked in a perpetual ‘proof-of-concept’ phase that promise significant gains but are always one step away from delivering true value. For organisations to make a step-change in their pace of change for AI adoption there are three key areas they need to address.
1. Define and commit to an actionable AI strategy
Companies that successfully scale AI have one thing in common: they integrate AI deeply into their core strategy. This demands executive sponsorship, clear policy frameworks, and comprehensive integration plans. Organisations need to move beyond treating AI as an experimental side-project to embedding it within their strategic agenda, ensuring alignment with key business goals and priorities.
A recent Deloitte survey highlights this strategic gap vividly: despite significant adoption and positive user feedback, most Irish companies have yet to establish a structured, company-wide AI strategy.
2. AI fluency and change management are essential
The Deloitte Digital Consumer Trends report finds: “Irish employees are ahead of employers and ready to take advantage of GenAI. Employers need to back this up with initiatives and investment for organisational changes to take place.”
At its core, the success of AI is not about algorithms or computational power alone; it is about people. This means communicating the organisation’s AI strategy effectively, providing training and education to demystify employee fears and concerns and gives them fluency to adopt AI solutions effectively and safely. three key points are critical here. 1.82 per cent of interviewed leaders believe that AI increases job satisfaction and enhances performance of their employees. 2. the EU AI Act, obligates that providers and deployers of AI must take measures to ensure a sufficient level of AI Literacy and, 3. Common reasons for low AI adoption include: lack of time to explore the technology; lack of capability to use it effectively and lack of direction for where it can provide value.
This means organisations need to be controlled and specific about guiding how AI can be used, providing hands on training and time to employees and directly putting tools in the hands of users to encourage adoption. This will accelerate the pace of adoption and change and ultimately increase the return on investment that the CxOs are demanding.
3. Design with intent
AI solutions need to be designed with clear intent from the outset, designed with the intent that it will deliver value, designed with the intent that it will need to be scaled, designed collaboratively from day one with interdisciplinary input from across the organisation (such as compliance, risk, legal, IT, data, business, strategy etc.) with the intent to challenge and adapt the solution to meet the needs of the business and designed with the intent that trustworthy AI principles are applied. Failing to design with this intent leads to stalled pilots, frustrated leadership with investment not yielding return, loss of consumer/user trust and ultimately leading to the organisation falling behind in race for value driving AI adoption.
Becoming AI leaders
Irish businesses have the potential to lead globally in AI adoption, but realising this ambition demands strategic clarity, organisational commitment, and effective execution. Beyond this, Ireland’s position as an innovation hub for Europe offers unique opportunities for Irish organisations to leverage sovereign AI solutions and refresh their R&D capabilities. Ireland’s investment in AI-centric infrastructure and policies can cultivate a landscape ripe for innovation and advance its role in shaping European AI standards. Many use-cases so far have been focused on efficiency plays, but moving towards experience and capability plays can propel Irish businesses to the forefront of global AI adoption. 50 per cent of leaders cite the top challenges of adoption as managing AI-related risk, a lack of executive commitment, and a lack of and post-launch support.
In the age of AI, the winners will not merely be the technologically sophisticated, but those who master the integration of human intelligence with AI capability.
The next step is action. At Deloitte we can support you in implementing scaled AI capability that brings value to your business. Drawing on our expertise we can help you meet your AI vision by navigating your challenges in technical and data infrastructure, advising and implementing changes in your processes and governance, and fostering AI adoption with your teams.
2. www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/consulting/articles/state-of-generative-ai-in-enterprise.html
W: www.deloitte.com/ie/en/services/consulting/services/artificial-intelligence-and-data.html
