Is Your Company’s Data Ready for Generative AI?

A new survey of data leaders across industries suggests that most companies have a long way to go.

March 26, 2024

Illustration by Carl Godfrey

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While CDOs and data leaders are excited about generative AI, they have much work to do to get ready for it. A recent survey of 334 CDOs and data leaders — and a series of interviews with these executives — reveals that companies have not yet created new data strategies or begun to manage their data in the ways necessary to make generative AI work for them. Despite excitement, companies have yet to see clear value from generative AI and need to do significant work to prepare their data.

Many organizations are excited about generative AI, and they are mobilizing to take advantage of it. Boards of directors are having educational workshops and encouraging their companies to act. Senior management teams are thinking about what use cases to develop. Individuals and departments are experimenting with how the technology can increase their productivity and effectiveness.

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Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s AI practice. He is a coauthor of All-in on AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023).

Priyanka Tiwari is a product marketing leader at Amazon Web Services (AWS). She focusses on connected storytelling across AWS databases, analytics and machine learning services and solutions.