A recent AI research report from EPAM Systems, Inc. (NYSE: EPAM) titled "From Hype to Impact: How Enterprises Can Unlock Real Business Value with AI," sheds light on the state of AI adoption within enterprises. The study, which surveyed 7,300 participants across nine countries and eight industries, reveals a significant gap between the perceived and actual progress of AI implementation. While nearly half of the respondents considered their companies as "advanced" in AI, only a little over a quarter had successfully deployed AI use cases to the market.

Elaina Shekhter, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at EPAM, notes that the initial experimentation phase with AI, focused on immediate gains in productivity and operational efficiency, is evolving. The new phase requires companies to identify and strategically prioritize high-value use cases to achieve broader organizational impact. Success hinges on aligning talent, data, and technology around these key use cases to scale AI deployment and capture tangible business value.

The report highlights several key findings. Firstly, companies are committed to increasing their AI spending by 14% year-over-year in 2025. Secondly, scaling AI implementation remains a significant challenge, with many organizations struggling to move beyond experimentation. Thirdly, market leaders, or "disruptors," attribute a substantial 53% of their expected 2025 profits to AI investments, showcasing AI's direct financial impact. Fourthly, governance and security measures are lagging behind AI growth, with businesses estimating at least 18 months to implement effective AI governance models. Lastly, AI talent remains a priority, with 43% of companies planning to hire AI-related roles in 2025, particularly machine learning engineers and AI researchers.

Dmitry Tovpeko, VP, Engineering at EPAM, emphasizes that true transformation lies in bridging the gap between tech teams and the business. Developers are transitioning into strategic experts, responsibly leveraging AI for end-to-end scenarios. Aligning tech teams with business objectives to solve real-world customer problems is crucial for success.

The report identifies four critical areas for successful AI adoption: people, processes, and culture; business and technology modernization; security; and governance and responsible AI. Effective AI implementation requires strong executive leadership, a clear organizational purpose, and a modernization strategy that aligns business and technical teams. Security, particularly data protection, data quality, and cloud security, remains a top priority. While many advanced companies claim to have established AI strategies, comprehensive governance frameworks are still lacking.

Nir Kaldero, Chief AI Officer, EPAM NEORIS, points out that the next phase of AI involves deployment at scale, focusing on enterprise-wide, high-impact use cases. This requires aligning people, culture, data, cloud, and new processes to unlock true exponential business value.

The report concludes that organizations must align AI with their business objectives, moving beyond using AI solely for productivity gains and operational efficiencies. To gain a competitive advantage, enterprises must strategically leverage AI across their entire value chain to drive revenue growth and enhance customer experience.

The data in the report is based on a survey of 7,300 respondents from enterprises with 10,000+ employees, evenly split across C-Suite and Vice President levels, as well as engineers and developers. The survey spanned nine countries (the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Argentina) and eight industries (financial services, life sciences and MedTech, education and business information services, energy, retail and consumer product goods, telco, media and entertainment, insurance, automotive, and manufacturing). The survey was conducted between October 24, 2024, and December 3, 2024, in partnership with Censuswide.