Two thirds of financial organizations in New Zealand are advanced users of AI, but many lack the data environment to make full use of the technology.
Auckland, 5 September 2024: Around 94% of financial services operations leaders in New Zealand have revealed that it takes “significant effort” to gain any meaningful insights from their data. Many businesses want to use AI to drive their decision-making and streamline operations, but trust in data is lacking; 84% do not fully trust their data, and 40% are forced to work with data that is more than two weeks old.
That 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 New Zealand’s financial services sector, revealed that while four in five believed that cost control and risk mitigation would improve dramatically with access to real-time data, at least 40% lack the data environment to support real-time analytics. Not only does this lack of real-time data hinder their performance and decision-making capabilities, it makes the path to AI more difficult.
The findings, which are shared in an ActiveOps report titled Ready Or Not AI Is Here, suggest that financial services institutions in New Zealand do not yet have the right kind of data environment to support AI initiatives. 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. Failure to achieve this results in “data irrelevance,” which is what many of those surveyed in New Zealand are currently experiencing.
This has not dampened support for AI, with 66% of surveyed organizations already at the advanced or very advanced stages of AI usage. However, a lack of access to real-time, trusted data is a potential roadblock to further AI development and is fostering mistrust in the technology. Nearly all (94%) still struggle to get any meaningful insights from their data, and 84% admit that a lack of trust in their data is a barrier to better decision-making.
Summary of key findings:
- 84% believe that if they had trusted data, they could make more effective decisions
- 4 in 5 think that cost control and risk mitigation would improve with access to real-time data
- 1 in 3 want to use AI predictions and forecasts to tell them what action to take
However:
- 2 in 5 cannot access real-time data to make decisions
- 40% are forced to make decisions on data that is more than two weeks old
- 94% say that it takes “significant effort” to gain insight from their data
This friction when it comes to AI adoption is not unique to New Zealand. The same study, which looked at several countries including the US, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, found that, globally, 98% of respondents face significant challenges when adopting AI for gathering, analyzing, and reporting data.
“Financial Services operations leaders in New Zealand are clearly bought into AI and believe in its game-changing potential,” comments Anna Itsiopoulos, Managing Director, APAC at ActiveOps. “However, there is a limit to what AI can achieve without the right kind of data environment, as these organizations are now finding out. Data needs to be cleansed, classified and made securely accessible across the organization if the true potential of AI-driven decision-making is to be realized. That means instead of starting with AI, businesses ought to be starting with their data, laying a solid foundation that ensures their AI initiatives – while exciting – aren’t 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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