- 85% of IT decision makers surveyed said their company's 2024 AI strategy has progressed, with 47% saying they have achieved a positive return on investment

- Nearly half of the companies surveyed want to optimize their investment in 2025 through open source AI

BEIJING, December 26, 2024/PRNewswire/ -- The latest study commissioned by IBM (NYSE: IBM) found that the companies surveyed are investing in artificial intelligence for the long term and are increasingly interested in using open source tools to drive return on investment and innovation.

The study, conducted by Morning Consult in collaboration with Lopez Research (Lopez Research), surveyed more than 2,400 IT decision makers. The results showed that 85% of respondents said progress has been made in implementing the 2024 AI strategy, and nearly half (47%) of the respondents have seen a positive return on investment from AI investments. The data also confirmed that using open source tools in AI solutions may bring greater financial viability: 51% of companies surveyed that currently use open source AI tools say they have seen a positive return on investment, compared to only 41% of companies surveyed that do not use open source tools.

Nearly two-thirds (62%) of respondents said they will increase AI investments in 2025, and 48% plan to use open source ecosystems to optimize AI implementation. Of the companies surveyed that are not currently using open source, 2 out of 5 companies said they plan to use open source to implement artificial intelligence in 2025.

Maribel Lopez (Maribel Lopez) of Lopez Research (Lopez Research) said, “As companies begin to implement artificial intelligence on a large scale, many companies place more value on success metrics such as increased productivity, partly because traditional hard return on investment returns have not yet been shown on balance sheets. Yet the company continues to rapidly advance its AI strategy, and there is no sign of slowing down. Businesses now recognize the value of defining specific use cases and optimizing AI projects. They are using hybrid cloud strategies and open source to drive AI innovation and achieve financial returns.”

Further findings include:

Companies are investing more in artificial intelligence, but the strategic focus is more prominent.

• 89% of companies surveyed plan to increase or maintain their investment in artificial intelligence in 2025.
  • Of the 62% of respondents who plan to increase their investments, nearly two-fifths (39%) plan to increase spending by 25-50%.
  • Only 5% of respondents plan to reduce AI spending, and none of them will be reduced by more than 50%.
• The companies surveyed are focusing their AI investments on specific areas, particularly IT operations (63% of respondents identified as a top focus area), and data quality management (46%) and product/service innovation (41%).
• When asked what strategic changes will take place in 2025, IT decision makers surveyed believe that using managed cloud services (51%), hiring professionals (48%), and leveraging open source (48%) are the most common ways they plan to optimize their AI investments.

Open source is critical to an enterprise's artificial intelligence strategy

• Of the IT decision makers surveyed, 6 out of 10 said they use an open source ecosystem as a tool source for artificial intelligence, and it is expected that more artificial intelligence solutions will be based on open source in the coming year (41% in 2025, 37% in 2024).
• More than 80% of respondents said that at least a quarter of their company's artificial intelligence solutions or platforms are open source-based.
  • As companies grow in size, so does the possibility that most (over 50%) AI solutions are based on open source.
• The companies surveyed that adopted an open source ecosystem were more likely to achieve a positive return on investment (51% vs. 41%) than companies that did not adopt an open source ecosystem.
• Furthermore, compared to companies that don't use the open source ecosystem, the companies surveyed that use the open source ecosystem plan to launch more artificial intelligence pilot projects in the next year: 38% of respondents said they plan to launch more than 21 artificial intelligence pilot projects in 2025, compared to only 26% of companies that don't use open source AI tools.

The report successfully promoted organizations with artificial intelligence projects, often using less traditional return on investment metrics.

• 85% of IT decision makers surveyed reported progress in implementing their artificial intelligence strategies, and only 9% reported no progress.
• 58% of respondents said their companies can usually move from artificial intelligence pilots to full production in less than a year.
• 31% of surveyed companies said their AI investments were more innovation-driven, while 28% were more driven by return on investment; 41% said their organizations were driven by both innovation and return on investment.
• Faster software development (25%), faster innovation (23%), and reduced production time (22%) are the three most important metrics surveyed IT decision makers use to calculate the return on AI investment. Hard real money/quantifiable savings ranked fourth, accounting for 15%.
• Nearly half (47%) of the companies surveyed said they are receiving a positive return on investment from artificial intelligence projects; 33% of the companies surveyed said they are achieving a balance of payments, and only 14% of the companies surveyed said their current return on investment is negative.
  • Of the companies that have yet to achieve a positive return on investment, less than half (44%) expect to start seeing real money savings within the next one to two years; 92% believe they will achieve a positive return on investment within three years.

To view the full study, visit

Research methods:

Morning Consult surveyed 2,413 IT Decision Makers (ITDMS) from the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, India, Singapore, Indonesia, and South Korea from October 30 to November 13, 2024. The interview was conducted online and the data were unweighted. The respondents are employed by companies with 101 or more employees, hold director-level positions or higher in technical positions, and have decision-making power over at least one business with regard to business consulting/consulting service management, IT product procurement, or business consulting service procurement business.

About IBM

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Guo Tao gguotao@cn.ibm.com