AI readiness: Swiss companies are gaining ground
The latest Cisco "AI Readiness Index" shows that Swiss companies are making good progress in the readiness of AI technologies despite growing AI investments. In 2024, 34% of the Swiss companies surveyed are now in the top two performance classes out of four. In 2023, it was only 24 percent. Despite the race to catch up, Switzerland is still only in the middle of the European field and only 8% of companies are fully prepared to use AI productively.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is presenting the whole world with new challenges. Companies all over the world are trying to keep pace with developments and use the new technology profitably. According to the latest Cisco "AI Readiness Index", Switzerland has made up ground, with 34% of Swiss companies in the top group this year. Last year, the figure was 24 percent.
Despite the progress made, challenges remain in Switzerland when it comes to AI. In view of the rapid technological developments and the importance of AI for competitiveness, there is a dangerous gap in readiness that urgently needs to be closed.
"Swiss companies are gaining ground in AI, which is important news," says Christopher Tighe, Head of Switzerland at Cisco. "However, Swiss companies are not yet where they need to be to leverage the potential of AI. Especially in the area of IT infrastructure, there is a need to catch up in order to make data centers fit for AI requirements. The good news is that Switzerland is globally competitive when it comes to AI talent, and we need to take advantage of this."
The Cisco "AI Readiness" Index is based on an anonymous survey of 7,985 IT managers in 30 markets whose organizations have at least 500 employees. 300 respondents came from Switzerland. The assessment of AI readiness is based on six pillars: strategy, infrastructure, data, governance, talent and corporate culture. In all categories, the companies are divided into four groups - "Pacesetters", "Chasers", "Followers" and "Laggards" - based on specified performance characteristics.
Urgency drives investments, results fail to materialize
AI has become a central component of corporate strategies. In Switzerland, all companies surveyed (100 %) state that the urgency to introduce AI has increased in the past year - primarily driven by the management level. Almost half (48 %) of the companies spend between 10 % - 30 % of their IT budget on AI projects.
Despite these investments, the results show that expectations are often not met. More than 60 % of respondents report that their AI initiatives have not yet brought significant progress or results in the automation, optimization and support of processes.
Swiss key findings of the report:
- Switzerland is strong in AI strategy and AI talent: 72 % of Swiss companies are in the top two AI performance groups when it comes to their company's AI strategy. This puts them on a par with British companies and only just behind German (77 %) and American (79 %) companies. Switzerland also scores very well in comparison when it comes to IT talent, with 52 % of companies in the top two groups. These are the strongest values in Europe.
- Infrastructure remains a weak point: Only 35 % of Swiss companies are well or very well prepared for the infrastructure requirements of AI. This is slightly above the European average of 33 %, but a long way behind American companies (56 %)
- High investment, moderate results: Swiss companies primarily use AI in the areas of cyber security (37 %), IT infrastructure (36 %) and data management (31 %). While the priorities are to increase efficiency, innovation and sales growth, the hoped-for profits often fail to materialize.
- Management pressure is growing: 51 % of the companies report strong pressure from management to implement AI quickly. At the same time, investors (37 %) and middle management (33 %) also play an important role.
- AI culture expandable, governance and data average: In the remaining categories, Swiss companies are at a low level in line with the European average, but significantly behind the Americans. This is particularly the case in the area of "AI culture", where only 26% of Swiss companies are in the top two performance categories, while countries such as Germany and the UK are at 40 and 41% respectively, and the USA at 47%.
In the face of growing pressure, 29 % of companies plan to allocate more than 40 % of their IT budget to AI in the next five years - a significant increase compared to just 5 % today.
Source: www.cisco.com/c/de_ch
