We've just finished the second wave of Infor's Enterprise AI Adoption Impact Index, our global survey of senior business leaders and AI decision-makers. This wave polled over 2,100 of them across seven countries – and the results stopped me in my tracks.
Of the seven major markets we surveyed (Australia, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, United States of America, Singapore) the UK sits at or near the bottom on almost every measure that matters: how much return businesses are getting from AI, how much oversight it still needs, and how confident and comfortable they are running it.
Line up all the questions and the picture remains: the UK comes bottom in three and second bottom in eight more, finishing above only Japan.
However, it’s not necessarily a verdict on UK business’ capacity to embrace the AI age, indeed it is far from it – the appetite is there. Rather it ought to be seen as an opportunity for better adoption of AI: addressing the demand for tailored, industry-specific tools that Infor provides, rather than generic (or “off-the-shelf”) tools which are burdening businesses with the workload of adoption to generic models, which impacts their ability to get on with the business of business and leaves them falling behind a market that is not slowing down in the slightest.
The UK is lagging behind.
Let’s start with the headline figures - UK businesses using AI report an average efficiency gain of 23% over the past year. That’s the lowest of the seven markets we surveyed, against an average of 34% across the other six.The UK also reports needing more human review of what their AI produces – 53% in the UK, with the US next at 49%.
This echoes our global findings of our first survey (published in April), but four months on, and across three more markets, it’s most acute in the UK.
Confidence in - and comfort with - AI tells a similar story. Since April, confidence in managing AI rollout without disrupting operations has fallen from 75% to 66%. Comfort with autonomous agents handling routine-to-critical processes has fallen from 11.7% to 6.3% (a 5.4pt drop). That decline in comfort matters as much as the return figures: it’s a sign that UK businesses want AI that stays accountable to the people running it, not just AI that moves fast.
UK full-scale AI deployment alone rose from 21.8% to 23.6% since April, and broader partial deployment lifts the total running AI in some form above 60%.
“UK businesses aren’t short on ambition, they’re short on AI which is actually suitable for what they do. Off-the-shelf doesn’t cut it – it’s a mismatch from the start. The ability to combine technology, industry expertise and operational oversight will increasingly be what sets successful AI strategies apart – and Infor’s industry-specific solutions help close that gap.”Mark Hughes, VP Sales & Country manager UK & I, Infor
Appetite isn’t the problem. Execution is.
UK business hasn’t gone cold on AI–half of businesses plan to increase their AI investment further over the next 12 months.
So, appetite isn’t the problem. Execution is.
It’s the same ambition to execution gap we highlighted in April’s publication–it hasn’t closed yet.
Meanwhile, ask what businesses want from AI and the picture is a practical one:
- Cutting time spent on routine tasks (39%)
- Operational costs (34%)
- Automating workflows (26%)
Businesses seek solutions to day-to-day problems and frictions; they’re not chasing tomorrow’s hype.
And today, generic off-the-shelf solutions aren’t meeting those needs, with 67% of respondents agreeing they don’t meet the specifics of their business or even industry.
Data, ownership, and uncertainty.
Beyond generic AI, there are broadly three issues sitting underneath the shortfall–data readiness, ownership, and uncertainty. All of which paint a picture of why UK businesses feel they are not seeing the returns from AI that they’re hoping for.
- Data readiness: Only 62% of UK businesses agree their own data is mature and well-governed enough to support reliable AI–the second lowest of the seven markets, ahead of Japan only (and essentially unchanged since April). The US clears 74%, while the others are all above 80%. That’s a significant opportunity. Meanwhile, almost a quarter of UK business (24%) say that legacy or disconnected systems have driven higher integration and readiness costs, with 22% saying it’s slowed deployment.
- Ownership: 14% of UK businesses (considerably above the global average) say that no single person is responsible for governing how AI is used, managing its risks, or ensuring it is compliant. Responsibility is instead split across the CEO, CIO, CTO or an AI committee–all with competing priorities and workflows. Singapore meanwhile is down at 3.5%.
- Uncertainty: Uncertainty remains a concern with 28% of respondents pointing to compliance and regulatory concern. It’s a fast-moving picture and businesses don’t know how to best proceed.
More broadly (and perhaps unsurprisingly) there is a further divide for small UK businesses and larger ones in the UK, with 40% of small UK businesses saying they have no AI deployment of any kind, against just 9% of large ones. When looking at large UK businesses, AI has delivered an average efficiency gain of 23% over the past year.
Why it matters.
Infor has spent years working with UK businesses on this problem, and these findings corroborate what we have learned through these ongoing discussions–businesses aren’t asking whether to use AI, they’re asking what’s best to use, how to best use it, and, if they’ve already started their journey before engaging with Infor, why the “solution” provided by another vendor doesn’t actually fit their needs.
Generic AI, dropped into a specific business with specific processes, data, expertise and regulatory obligations, produces a smaller return and needs more handholding before it can be used to any substantive effect. Nor does it bring confidence. It’s a mismatch from the outset.
With this, data, ownership, and uncertainty aren't three separate problems. They're just the same shortfall, showing up in three places. UK businesses can’t run AI on top of gaps that generic, one-size-fits-all tools were never built to close.
This goes to demonstrate the value of purpose-built, industry-specific solutions–the solutions Infor provides customers.
Rather than retrofitting generic software, Infor platforms are engineered around the precise operational processes that manufacturers, distributors, and retailers actually run.
Infor’s Velocity Suite is a great example. It’s an all-inclusive AI package built for specific industries, bringing an agentic layer, built on micro-vertical processes across manufacturing, distribution and service industries.
This is also the direction the wider platform is heading. Infor’s Industry AI Agents–built around how an industry actually operates–are now generally available across CloudSuite, and our latest updates adds AI Governance through Infor GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance). This means every agent is registered, monitored and auditable, and people stay accountable for the decisions that matter.
That’s a direct answer to what this survey found–an AI that not only returns more; it can be trusted to handle more.
To see how we’re helping UK businesses close the gap and adopt market specific solutions, visit our customer stories at infor.com/customer-stories, or get in touch with our UK team.
About Infor
Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry. We develop complete solutions for our focus industries. Infor's mission-critical enterprise applications and services are designed to deliver sustainable operational advantages with security and faster time to value. Over 60,000 organizations in more than 175 countries rely on Infor's 17,000 employees to help achieve their business goals. As a Koch company, our financial strength, ownership structure, and long-term view empower us to foster enduring, mutually beneficial relationships with our customers.
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