Reflection — AI value is decided by your data, not your model

Leaders fund what is visible: the model, the tool, the demo running on clean data. Yet across 10,000 businesses in 32 countries, only 5% consider their data adequately ready to support AI, while limited data access (50%), data quality (40%), and integration across systems (38%) remain the top obstacles. What blocks scaling is not model power but the unglamorous, underfunded data foundation. A flawless pilot on a curated dataset often collapses the moment it meets production systems.

Before funding another model, have the data readiness of your single first use case audited (available sources, quality, access rights, integration) and fix that foundation first.

Source: Dun & Bradstreet, “AI Momentum Survey,” May 2026 (10,000 businesses, 32 countries).