NEWS
Alteryx, an AI-ready data and analytics company, has released its 2026 IT Leader Research: The State of AI Ownership, Agents, and ROI report, revealing that organisations are entering a new phase of AI maturity where success is no longer defined by AI adoption alone, but by the ability to translate investment into measurable business outcomes.
Among 1,400 IT leaders surveyed globally, 80 % expect AI spending to increase over the next two years, while 69 % report moderate or significant returns on their AI investments. Despite growing investment and early returns, more than half( 53 %) said their organisation struggles to translate business context into AI systems and workflows.
At the same time, 77 % agreed that business context is critical to producing accurate and relevant AI outputs, highlighting a widening gap between AI ambition and operational readiness.
The research found that 93 % of IT leaders are confident agentic AI could deliver measurable ROI for their
53 % of organisations struggle to translate business context into AI
enterprise within the next two years. However, only 18 % of organisations have achieved fully selfservice access to cloud data for business users.
Andy MacMillan, CEO of Alteryx, said:“ Our research highlights a growing gap between AI ambition and enterprisescale execution. Organisations have proven they’ re willing to invest in AI, and many are already seeing returns. But scaling AI requires more than better models. It requires making the business knowledge people use every day available to the systems making decisions.”
Andy MacMillan, CEO of Alteryx
AI networks offer revenue growth for UAE, KSA service providers
recent Ciena survey highlighted
A the potential revenue opportunities associated with AI-driven networking across the Gulf. In the UAE, 96 % of respondents expect high-capacity AI-driven network services, providing the connectivity to AI infrastructure required by enterprises, hyperscalers and neoscalers, to drive revenue growth over the next three to five years, compared with 90 % in Saudi Arabia.
Confidence in managed optical fibre network( MOFN) services is similarly strong, with 97 % of UAE respondents and 96 % of Saudi respondents expecting MOFN services to generate revenue from interconnecting distributed AI compute clusters over the next three years.
In the UAE, 97 % of respondents believe optical network upgrades are urgently needed to support premium enterprise AI service level agreements( SLAs), with 56 % describing the upgrades as critically urgent.
In Saudi Arabia, 86 % believe optical network upgrades are urgently needed, with 51 % saying upgrades are required immediately and 35 % expecting them to be necessary within 12 to 18 months.
The Ciena survey, conducted in collaboration with Censuswide, questioned
100 service provider experts in each of the UAE and Saudi Arabia as part of a wider study spanning 12 countries. It found that service providers in both markets see several emerging opportunities to expand AI-related revenue streams.
AI inference is one such opportunity. Growth in AI inference data centres is expected to increase demand for data centre interconnect services, according to 58 % of Saudi respondents, above the global average of 49 %. In the UAE, 37 % said the same.
Across both markets, service providers believe network upgrades are necessary to support growing AI demands. However, the findings indicate some differences in the perceived urgency and timing of these investments.
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