The findings, just released by Ivalua, the procurement platform, carried out by Forrester, details that while 55% of organisations are set to make significant investments in AI over the next two years, 59% of organisations are worried that poor data quality will make it impossible for AI to produce accurate decisions.

The findings from 400 procurement, supply chain and finance business leaders show; an inability to access data (44%), a lack of normalisation between data sets (43%) and inaccurate data (41%) as the most common challenges.

In addition to data challenges, 44% of respondents cited a lack of support from C-level executives regarding AI innovation. Claiming also that they are currently unable to get full value from AI due to the immaturity of applications, with 62% citing this as a problem, suggesting AI vendor marketing is far more advanced than capabilities. There is also uncertainty regarding how to apply AI to particular use cases (47%).

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A further 25% plan to make a minor investment in AI to determine its potential ROI over the next two years.

David Khuat-Duy, Corporate CEO of Ivalua said: “There is clearly a huge appetite for AI and this will only increase as more relevant applications, and success stories come to light.”

“But when investing in AI, it’s important that organisations address challenges that will otherwise limit value.”

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“Driving accurate insights from AI is reliant on having a solid data foundation from which to work, and the findings show that this remains a significant obstacle for most organisations.”

“Success requires organisations to simultaneously address enterprise data problems when investing in AI.”

Why are organisations investing in AI?

These figures sound somewhat contradictory; however, the study did identify how respondents could see the practical uses of AI in procurement and supply chain.

According to the survey, 44% believe AI will impact alerting the enterprise and suppliers of supply chain disruption, recognising and flagging supplier compliance issues (39%), and quickly identifying instances of fraud (37%).

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In addition, there’s a belief that AI will increase automation of menial tasks making them take less time. Two of the most significant areas flagged by respondents as having the highest potential for automation is invoice processing (51%) and approval of proposed purchases (35%).

Khuat-Duy, concludes: “Ultimately if organisations can improve their data quality and address other challenges, they can tap into a wealth of AI benefits.”

“Whether it’s automating low-value tasks or providing rich insights, AI can have a transformational impact on procurement and supply chain operations. For example, AI offers huge potential to enable smarter procurement, which can create efficiencies and enable better decision making, offering a real competitive advantage to those that adopt.”