While the majority of financial operations leaders are optimistic about AI, many lack the right data environment to fully embrace it, with one in four relying on data that is more than a week old.
Toronto, 5 September 2024: More than 80% of financial operators leaders in Canada have revealed that it takes “significant effort” to gain any meaningful insights from their data. While there is an appetite for AI-driven decision-making to streamline operations, roughly 25% are routinely stuck working with data that is more than a week out of date, and 50% say they cannot access real-time data at all to support their decisions.
This is according to a new international study commissioned by ActiveOps, a leading provider of AI-powered decision intelligence for service operations. The Censuswide survey, which gathered insights from Chief Operating Officers, Chief Financial Officers, and Senior Heads of Operations within Canada’s financial services sector, revealed that while 33% believed that AI would enable deeper, more meaningful insights, their current data environment was not AI-ready.
The findings, which are shared in an ActiveOps report titled Ready Or Not AI Is Here, reveal that too many financial services leaders in Canada struggle to get any meaningful insights from their operational data. For AI to be implemented and used to its fullest potential, data must be up-to-date, correctly classified, and available across the organization instead of confined to departmental silos. Trust in data is low among Canadian operations leaders, with 72% reporting that if they had access to data they trusted, they could make more confident and effective decisions. This lack of faith in data is leading to what the report calls “decision paralysis”, and is holding businesses back from adopting AI and using it to its fullest potential.
Summary of key findings:
- 72% believe that if they had trusted data, they could make more effective decisions
- 78% believe that trusted data would improve operational performance
- 1 in 3 believe that AI would enable deeper, more meaningful insights
However:
- 82% say that it takes “significant effort” to get meaning from the data
- 1 in 4 are forced to base decisions on data that is more than a week old
- 50% cannot access real-time data at all to support their decision-making
This friction when it comes to AI adoption is not unique to Canada. The same study, which looked at several countries including the US, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, found that, globally, 98% of respondents face significant challenges when adopting AI for gathering, analyzing, and reporting data.
“There is a healthy appetite to embrace AI among financial operations leaders in Canada,” comments Spencer O’Leary, CEO North America at ActiveOps. “However, there is a real risk that these businesses might be tempted to run before they can walk. To truly capitalize on AI, organizations must lay the groundwork and ensure that their data environments are organized and well optimized, otherwise any AI initiative will be built on sand.”
The full report, titled ‘Ready Or Not AI Is Here,’ can be downloaded here.
Research Methodology
ActiveOps commissioned Censuswide to survey over 850 Chief Operating Officers, Chief Financial Officers, and Senior Heads of Operations within the Financial Services sector, to gather insights on their priorities for 2024, challenges they were experiencing with their operational data and adoption of AI. The research was conducted between February and March 2024 in seven countries including the UK, Republic of Ireland, the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Censuswide abide by and employ members of the Market Research Society which is based on the ESOMAR principles and are members of The British Polling Council.
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