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53% of Organizations Struggle to Translate Business Context Into AI Despite Rising AI Investment

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3 months ago

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Alteryx, Inc., an AI-ready data and analytics company, today released its “2026 IT Leader Research: The State of AI Ownership, Agents, and ROI” report, revealing that organizations are entering a new phase of AI maturity where success is no longer defined by AI adoption alone, but by the ability to translate AI investment into measurable business outcomes.

Among 1,400 IT leaders surveyed globally, 80% expect AI spending to increase over the next two years, while 69% report moderate or significant ROI from their AI investments. Yet despite growing investment and early returns, more than half (53%) say their organization struggles to translate business context into AI systems and workflows. At the same time, 77% agree business context is critical to producing accurate and relevant AI outputs, underscoring a widening gap between AI ambition and operational readiness.

Key Findings at a Glance:

  • 80% of organizations expect AI spending to increase over the next two years.
  • 69% report moderate or significant ROI from their AI investments.
  • 93% of IT leaders are confident agentic AI could deliver measurable ROI for their enterprise within the next two years.
  • 77% agree business context is critical to accurate, relevant AI outputs.
  • 53% say their organization struggles to translate business context into AI systems and workflows.
  • Only 18% of organizations have achieved fully self-service access to cloud data for business users.

AI Investment Is Accelerating. Expectations Are Rising Even Faster.

AI investment continues to accelerate as organizations move beyond experimentation toward enterprise-scale deployment. Eighty percent of organizations expect AI spending to increase over the next two years across infrastructure, workflow automation, data platforms, and governance.

With that investment comes greater accountability. Technology leaders are increasingly measuring AI success through productivity improvements (53%), cost reduction (45%), and revenue growth or broader business impact (39%). More than one-third (35%) say the ability to measure AI ROI will be one of the capabilities that most distinguishes technology leaders from their peers.

The findings suggest AI has entered a new phase where organizations are no longer asking whether AI works. They are asking whether it consistently delivers measurable business value.

Business Context Is Emerging as a Barrier to Enterprise AI

As AI becomes embedded in everyday business processes, organizations are discovering that models alone are not enough. According to the research, 77% of IT leaders agree that business context, including the rules, definitions, and operational knowledge that shape how their organizations operate, is essential for producing accurate and relevant AI outputs. Yet more than half (53%) say their organization struggles to translate that business context into the systems and workflows AI depends on.

The challenge isn’t simply giving AI more data. It’s giving AI the business logic that tells it how the business actually works. While AI can analyze information and generate responses, it cannot consistently apply company-specific rules, policies, thresholds, and decision criteria unless that knowledge is built into the workflows it uses to make decisions.

Much of that business logic still lives in spreadsheets, macros, documentation, email threads, and the expertise of the people closest to the work. A financial forecast depends on assumptions. A tax process depends on rules and exceptions. A supply chain decision depends on inventory thresholds and timing. AI should be grounded in the rules and logic the business already trusts.

“Our research highlights a growing gap between AI ambition and enterprise-scale execution,” said Andy MacMillan, CEO of Alteryx. “Organizations have proven they’re willing to invest in AI, and many are already seeing returns. But scaling AI requires more than better models. It requires making the business knowledge people use every day available to the systems making decisions.”

Limited Data Access Continues to Slow AI Adoption

Despite years of investment in data democratization, only 18% of organizations report that business users have fully self-service access to cloud data. Most organizations continue to rely on IT or data teams for routine data access and analytics, with 38% describing a mixed model and 15% saying business users remain largely dependent on technical teams.

The findings suggest this dependency extends beyond productivity. The employees with the deepest understanding of how the business operates are often the same people waiting on IT to access the data needed to build, validate, and improve AI workflows. That disconnect makes it more difficult to embed business context into enterprise AI systems, limiting AI’s ability to generate meaningful business outcomes.

Enterprise AI Works Best When IT and the Business Work Together

The research also points to a growing consensus that AI performs best when technical expertise and business expertise work together. Two-thirds of technology leaders say AI and agent-based systems are most productive when managed within the line of business. Additionally, 71% believe AI initiatives are most successful when IT and business teams collaborate closely.

This sentiment correlates with past Alteryx research. Yet, strategy (37%) and delivery (38%) remain concentrated within IT, while business teams are most often responsible for defining requirements (30%). That disconnect between where business knowledge resides and where AI systems are built continues to slow enterprise AI adoption.

MacMillan concluded, “The organizations creating lasting value from AI will be the ones that operationalize their business logic so it becomes visible, governed, repeatable, and ready for AI.”

To learn more and explore the full findings, download the “2026 IT Leader Research: The State of AI Ownership, Agents, and ROI” report.

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Cambridge Health Group and Heriot-Watt University to advance research and innovation in the GCC

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1 day ago

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November 6, 2026

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Cambridge Health Group (“CHG an international specialist healthcare group providing post-acute care and a subsidiary of Amanat Holdings PJSC (“Amanat”), has signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Heriot-Watt University (“Heriot-Watt”) to advance academic research in rehabilitation, long-term care and specialised care.

The agreement brings together CHG’s clinical expertise in long-term care and post-acute rehabilitation across six facilities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia with Heriot-Watt University’s pioneering research in healthy ageing, rehabilitation robotics and assistive technologies. Through its Global Research Institute in Health and Care Technologies and the National Robotarium, Heriot-Watt combines expertise in engineering, artificial intelligence and behavioural science to address complex challenges in health and care. Heriot-Watt’s global presence spans five campuses across Scotland, Dubai and Malaysia, with plans to establish a further campus in Saudi Arabia.

Together, the organisations will connect research with clinical practice, creating opportunities to develop and evaluate innovations that support rehabilitation, maximise independence and improve quality of life for people with complex, long-term care needs. The partners will also pursue national and international research grants, including collaboration with government and industry partners.

The partnership will also support the development of the region’s specialist healthcare workforce through academic training, executive education and tailored development programmes. These will include postgraduate research supervision, internships, industry placements and mentoring, helping connect academic learning with practical experience.

Professor Dame Heather McGregor, member of Heriot-Watt University’s Executive, said: “Universities have an important role in ensuring that research responds to the needs of society and that its benefits extend beyond academia. Our partnership with Cambridge Health Group brings our researchers closer to the questions and challenges shaping healthcare practice, creating opportunities to translate knowledge into meaningful improvements in care. Through education, professional development and practical experience, we look forward to supporting the skills and expertise the region will need as its healthcare sector continues to evolve. We look forward to doing meaningful work together.”

Wael K. Abdallah, Group Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Health Group, said: “As healthcare systems across the region evolve, advancing specialised care will increasingly depend on our ability to connect research, clinical expertise and real-world healthcare needs. At Cambridge Health Group, we see research and innovation as important enablers of better care outcomes and the continued development of post-acute healthcare across the GCC. Our collaboration with Heriot-Watt creates opportunities to bring academic expertise closer to clinical practice, strengthen the capabilities of our workforce and contribute to the long-term advancement of the sector.”

The partnership represents a step towards translating research into practical advances in specialised care, with the potential to benefit patients, healthcare professionals and the wider sector.

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Leading AI Builders Make Massive Commitments on VAST-Powered Infrastructure

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1 day ago

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November 6, 2026

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On the back of the biggest buildout in data infrastructure history, VAST Data, the AI Operating System company, today announced that it is at the center of many of the largest deployments in this space. In the first three quarters of the current fiscal year, just 14 of the more than 1,000 companies VAST serves have made more than $10 billion in aggregate commitments for VAST Data software and supporting platform hardware. The scale and breadth of these investments have no known precedent in the history of data infrastructure and signal that VAST is leading the world in this explosive buildout of superintelligent systems.

The VAST AI OS is the platform of choice for leading AI clouds and frontier AI labs to enable scalable AI training and inference. In 2026, the expansion of AI use cases and the realization of the value of superintelligent systems has reinforced the mandate for organizations to build with industrial-grade storage and database infrastructure to support GPUs and AI accelerators.

The progress VAST has made:

  • 14 customers have each committed over $100M in VAST Data-powered system build outs
  • Four of those 14 customers have each committed over $1B this year
  • VAST Data-powered systems now support 9 of the top 10 frontier AI labs

“Growth at this scale only happens when an entire industry is rebuilding at once,” said Renen Hallak, Founder and CEO of VAST Data. “That’s what the new AI stack is. It’s being built for models and agents, not people and applications, and data sits at the center of it. The companies building it at the largest scale, for people, agents and now robots, are choosing VAST to anchor it.”

Supply Aligned Through 2029

The scale of data capacity VAST’s partners are delivering is unprecedented, and is now representing a significant percentage of the overall global NAND flash produced for enterprise data centers. At a time of such extreme supply chain pressure, VAST is also now taking steps to ensure the next phase of superintelligent system buildout. Increased flash supply takes years to bring online due to the investments in NAND fabs.

Because VAST is partnered with so many of the world’s AI builders, VAST has unique visibility into where capacity demand is headed. The company has structured agreements with its supply chain partners to align more than 200 exabytes of flash capacity through 2029. This forward planning supports VAST’s scaling objectives for the next several years, maps to the growth outlook of its largest customers and helps the AI clouds, labs, enterprises and government organizations building on the VAST AI OS plan their infrastructure with confidence.

“Planning for hundreds of exabytes isn’t only about protecting our customers’ growth projections,” said Jeff Denworth, Co-Founder of VAST Data. “It’s about keeping flash available to hundreds of clouds, so that every AI builder, not just the largest, has the capacity it needs to build and compete.”

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Cloudera to Tackle the Enterprise AI Governance Gap at GITEX Global 2026 

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2 days ago

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November 5, 2026

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Cloudera, the only data and AI platform trusted by organisations to bring AI to their data,  announced its participation at GITEX Global 2026, the Middle East’s premier technology showcase. 

As AI adoption accelerates across the Middle East, businesses must ensure their data is accessible, well governed, and secure to support AI advancements. Organizations who handle sensitive data carefully consider where AI workloads run and how data is managed across their public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises environments. 

The UAE’s focus on sovereign AI and a secure digital environment is driven by nationwide digital-first initiatives. The UAE’s cloud computing market is projected to reach $23 billion by 2032, due to numerous government mandates for sovereign cloud adoption across the public sector. 

Alongside these mandates, enterprises within the region are adopting similar sovereignty principles. Organizations are looking to transition their AI workloads from public clouds to private or on-premises environments. However, this migration exposes a critical infrastructure challenge as legacy systems often confine valuable information in isolated data silos. 

The impact of these silos is evident in Cloudera’s recent Data Readiness Index, which reveals that while 91% of IT leaders across EMEA express confidence in their data, only 26% report that it is fully governed. To dismantle these barriers and bridge the gap between AI and data readiness, Cloudera introduces Cloudera Anywhere Cloud, a modular hybrid platform engineered specifically for the agentic era. 

“Our participation at GITEX Global 2026 comes at a time when organisations are looking more closely at how they manage data and deploy AI,” said Ahmad Shakora, Group Vice President, Cloudera Middle East. “Our work with global technology providers and regional partners reflects the different requirements businesses face, from accessing AI models to managing data across hybrid and sovereign environments.” 

To further strengthen its regional ecosystem, Cloudera has forged strategic alliances, including Mistral AI, to assist Cloudera with delivering the hybrid data foundation essential for moving enterprise AI into more organisations. Supported by Cloudera’s Anywhere Cloud platform, this new offering by Cloudera helps equip organizations in the Middle East with a secure, localized platform needed to scale advanced AI securely and independently. 

Based on stand H15-E40, Hall No. S15, Cloudera will feature live demonstrations showing how enterprises can tackle persistent data governance and architectural challenges to allow organisations to utilise AI securely within their own organisations. 

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