{"id":43497,"date":"2025-03-18T15:29:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T15:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/?p=43497"},"modified":"2025-04-03T10:47:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T09:47:34","slug":"lenovo-study-reveals-over-4x-hike-in-ai-investments-in-2025-in-anz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/2025\/03\/18\/lenovo-study-reveals-over-4x-hike-in-ai-investments-in-2025-in-anz\/","title":{"rendered":"Lenovo study reveals over 4x hike in AI investments in 2025 in ANZ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) emerges #1 AP priority for CIOs &#8211; but implementation is slow.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Business leaders and IT decision-makers confirm the accelerating shift toward ROI-driven-AI investments as organizations increase AI spending by 3.3x in AP and 4x in Australia &amp; New Zealand, according to the third edition of Lenovo\u2019s <em>CIO Playbook 2025 &#8211; It\u2019s Time for AI-nomics.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Commissioned by Lenovo<em>, <\/em>the research is based on a global IDC study of 2,900+ respondents, including 900+ IT and business decision-makers (ITBDMs) from 12 AP markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Early Stages of AI Adoption \u2013 ROI the greatest barrier<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the increasing spends, AI adoption in ANZ remains in its early stage with 58% of organizations either evaluating or planning to implement AI in the next 12 months. This is higher than AP (56%) and global (49%) with ROI emerging as the key barrier to quick adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Delivering ROI for AI is a long-term endeavor that requires balancing AI experiments with those that can be scaled. Interestingly, AP organizations expect a 3.6x ROI on average from their AI projects, which requires a measured approach to scaling AI and building internal capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ANZ\u2019s gradual pace reflects a focus on driving digital innovation, enhancing decision making, and reducing cyber threats while overcoming business challenges such as data quality issues, unrealistic expectations and IT infrastructure costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Overcoming Organizational Readiness Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Evolving business priorities each year reflect a deeper understanding of what it takes to drive AI growth, bringing greater awareness of its risks as well. Ethical issues and biases are the top AI risks this year, yet only 24% globally and 25% in AP have fully enforced AI GRC (governance, risk and compliance) policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In ANZ 21% of CIOs report fully implemented enterprise AI GRC policies. This highlights the urgent need for a structured approach for what has emerged as the #1 priority for businesses in AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Effective AI governance requires explainability, ethical frameworks, accountability, model governance, enhanced privacy, security and integrated human oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Business priorities are shifting in Asia Pacific,&#8221; said Sumir Bhatia, President, Asia Pacific Infrastructure Solutions Group, Lenovo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;For 2025, governance, risk, and compliance have jumped 12 spots to become the top priority, highlighting the focus on secure and responsible AI. Employee productivity has also climbed from #7 to #2, underscoring its growing importance. Lenovo is committed to making AI accessible, ethical, and impactful\u2014helping businesses of all sizes thrive in the AI era.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>GenAI Adoption Accelerates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>GenAI is set to transform enterprise workflows, commanding 38% of AI implementation spends in 2025 in ANZ:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>IT Operations remain the top use cases in both Asia Pacific and ANZ.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There is more focus on cybersecurity (2) and software development (3) in AP.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For ANZ sales (#2) and finance (#3) take precedence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>On-Prem and Hybrid Infrastructures Dominate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report reveals that 65% of organizations in Asia Pacificare opting for on-premises or hybrid solutions to power AI workloads. This preference is driven by the need for secure, low-latency environments, and operational flexibility. Meanwhile, 19% still rely on public cloud services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ANZ reflects a similar trend, with 66% using hybrid or on-prem, while the remainder depend on public cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Hybrid architectures offer the best of both worlds\u2014scalability and control,&#8221; said Silke Barlow, Country General Manager, Lenovo Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Globally, 63% of organizations choose on-premise and hybridinfrastructures for AI, with ANZ leading the way\u2014surpassing both the global and AP averages with a higher adoption rate. This alignment demonstrates a clear focus on driving innovation while staying secure and compliant for the unique demands of AI. With its end-to-end cutting-edge AI solutions, smarter infrastructure, and strategic partnerships, Lenovo is driving Smarter AI for all.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AI PCs: Early Adoption Signals Productivity Gains<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AI-powered PCs are gaining traction in AP, with 43% of organizations seeing significant productivity gains. While awareness is increasing, local adoption remains slow across markets. In ANZ, 63% of organizations are already in the planning stage for AI-powered PC adoption. As the technology matures and demonstrates ROI, the adoption curve will accelerate, driving more digital workplace solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Need for Skilled Partnerships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With organizations scaling their AI efforts, ANZ CIOs are ahead, with 37% actively leveraging professional AI services compared to 34% in AP. This enables them to navigate complexities in data management, talent shortages and cost efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly, an additional 46%of CIOs in ANZ are exploring or planning to engage these services in the near future. These collaborations help bridge internal capability gaps, enabling organizations to focus on upskilling their teams and building long-term resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;AI adoption is not just about the short-term gains. Organizations need to invest in the efficiency of the design, deployment and integration of AI solutions to their operations that enable tracking of the impact. Professional AI services play a key role here and help organizations successfully adopt AI through outcome-led approach. Solutions like Lenovo\u2019s AI Fast Start further accelerate this process, helping businesses quickly pilot, optimize, and scale AI initiatives with expert guidance and tested frameworks,\u201d said Fan Ho, Executive Director and General Manager, Solutions and Services Group, Lenovo Asia Pacific.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) emerges #1 AP priority for CIOs &#8211; but implementation is slow. Business leaders and IT decision-makers confirm the accelerating shift toward ROI-driven-AI investments as organizations increase AI spending by 3.3x in AP and 4x in Australia &amp; New Zealand, according to the third edition of Lenovo\u2019s CIO Playbook 2025 &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":43498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7027,1463,52,7183,44,54],"tags":[1108,157,130,7184],"class_list":["post-43497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intelligent-technologies-ai","category-apac","category-main-story-newsletter","category-surveys","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-ai","tag-apac","tag-lenovo","tag-surveys"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43954,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43497\/revisions\/43954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}