The top 3 pain points strategy teams cite as barriers to genAI adoption are:
Security & privacy risks (46%)
Competing internal priorities (42%)
Legal & regulatory considerations (40%)
“There have been a lot of pain points around the use of genAI. If there's anything that could potentially lead to any sort of security breaches or vulnerabilities, that is a huge concern and pain point. We haven't seen anything roll into a production environment on that front, but that's a constant reminder of why we need to pace this very carefully.” — SVP at a major financial institution
Leading use cases
For teams deploying genAI tools, customer service and marketing use cases lead the way.
These departments deliver measurable wins, like faster responses and higher engagement rates. This concrete ROI helps organizations build the case for wider adoption.
What’s next?
While customer-facing departments lead among current deployments, operations departments show the highest level of pilot activity (42% of respondents), with finance (36%) following closely.
One financial services executive highlights:
“Over the next 12 months, we're going to prioritize regulatory AI. We want to automate compliance checks and generate accurate regulatory reports…[to] reduce the amount of effort that we put into that.”
Silicon seat swap: Yesterday, at President Trump’s second inauguration, tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Sundar Pichai were seated prominently near the stage — an unusual break from tradition. Trump dismissed concerns about their influence, claiming they “won’t get anything” in return for their support.
Tick tock, TikTok: Then, after his inauguration, President Trump signed an order delaying the TikTok ban by 75 days and proposed a US government stake in the app. Hours later, TikTok began restoring service, crediting Trump for assuring service providers they won’t face penalties. However, TikTok remains unavailable for download in app stores.
Percolating problems: Oracle is refusing to give up its JavaScript trademark, kicking off a legal fight with Deno Land — the team behind the Deno runtime — and the broader JavaScript community. Critics say Oracle hasn’t contributed much to the language and want the trademark made public. Oracle must respond by February 3, 2025.
Lose one’s cool: Walgreens and Cooler Screens are embroiled in a $200M legal battle after Walgreens tried to terminate its contract for digitized refrigerator doors. Cooler Screens’ CEO retaliated by secretly cutting data feeds to over 100 Walgreens stores in December, effectively disabling the smart doors.
AGI ain’t it: Sam Altman dismissed rumors on X that OpenAI has achieved AGI (artificial general intelligence), calling the speculation “out of control.” The buzz, sparked by tech writer Gwern Branwen, claimed a major breakthrough in reasoning models. Altman urged fans to lower expectations by “100x” but teased that “cool stuff” is on the way.
P.S. Join us live on January 28 to get the data behind how high-performing strategy teams are adopting generative AI and actionable insights to help your team stay ahead. Register here.
