New research sponsored by Hyland suggests enterprise AI ambition is moving faster than the operational groundwork required to support it, with connected data, content, and workflows still falling short inside many organisations. The study, produced by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, found that while 94% of respondents said well-connected data, processes, and applications are highly important to successful AI adoption, only 27% said those elements are well connected in their organisation today.
The gap is especially clear in how companies handle unstructured information. While 65% of respondents said their structured data is somewhat or fully prepared for AI use, only 39% said the same of unstructured data, including emails, PDFs, images, video, and other document-heavy content. Much of the operational information businesses rely on still sits across fragmented repositories, applications, and workflows, making access, governance, and execution harder to scale.
Jitesh S. Ghai, CEO of Hyland, said: “As organisations move into the next phase of AI, the challenge is no longer just access to models, but whether the business is ready to operationalise AI in a way that is governed, contextual, and trusted. The agentic enterprise takes shape when AI is embedded into real operational workflows, grounded in the content, data, and controls the business already depends on. For many organisations, unstructured data is both the most overlooked asset and the biggest obstacle to scaling AI effectively.”
The research identified a broad set of barriers beyond data volume alone. The leading data challenges cited were data silos at 54%, data security and privacy issues at 48%, data format issues at 46%, insufficient data management and governance at 46%, and insufficient or unclear data strategy at 45%. Only 10% of respondents said lack of data was the main issue, pointing instead to readiness, access, and trust as the central constraints.
The study also suggests that many organisations have yet to embed AI directly into everyday operations. Among respondents whose organisations are actively using, piloting, or exploring AI, 39% said most AI-enabled workflows still rely on standalone tools, while only 12% said AI is embedded directly within the flow of work. Fewer than half, at 45%, said their AI projects are delivering the outcomes they expected. Amy Machado, senior research manager at IDC, said: “As companies move towards advanced and agentic forms of AI, the bar is being raised; not just for technology, but for how information flows, decisions are governed, and value is measured.”
For more detail, Hyland has published the full report.
