ABBYY Survey Reveals Disillusionment with Generative AI
Challenges Sparked by BYOS are Causing Shadow IT Risks
New survey results from ABBYY’s State of Intelligent Automation: GenAI Disillusionment and AI Wishlist report pinpoints the challenges business leaders are facing as they implement generative AI (GenAI) technology – leading to the need to use other AI tools to improve outputs.
The survey by Opinium Research, commissioned by ABBYY, shows that nearly a third (31%) of business leaders find training GenAI models harder than expected, while 28% say the tools were difficult to integrate into their business processes, and 26% did not have proper governance. Worryingly, a fifth (21%) say staff are misusing GenAI tools.
Many business leaders were able to address the challenges using other technologies, with more than a third (35%) turning to process intelligence, the same proportion using document AI, and a quarter introducing retrieval augmented generation (RAG).
Adding these technologies were contributing factors to 98% of businesses being happy with their GenAI tools – seeing better consistency of outputs (50%), better integration into existing workflows (45%), more accurate and reliable results (43%), increased user trust (43%) and greater cost efficiency and savings (42%). However, investment in the next year appears to be less aggressive. Most respondents stated their budget will only increase by 16-20%, while only 11% expect to increase their AI budgets by 50% or more.
Businesses spent money on GenAI tools that promised more than they can provide. In some cases, they didn’t even need it. Before moving forward with GenAI tools for agentic automation, companies need to first evaluate their current processes and create a visibility map of their workflow with data analytics tools such as process intelligence. We’ve helped customers like a global fast-food chain improve the extraction of data from thousands of lease agreements by 82% by using document AI to improve GenAI outputs. When training models prove more difficult than expected, pre-trained, purpose-built AI turns out to be the right solution.
Maxime Vermeir, Senior Director of AI at ABBYY
The survey also revealed that a fifth of businesses are experiencing “Shadow AI”, with 20% of business leaders saying that GenAI is only being used by employees for their own personal productivity, rather than as part of management-driven initiatives. Four-in-ten (41%) admit that a driving factor for introducing GenAI was that employees were already using it on a Bring Your Own Software (BYOS) basis for personal productivity.
Almost half (49%) say staff use it to “make them look smarter and more professional,” while 56% say it helps reduce workload and increases productivity. Generally, staff are optimistic about GenAI, with 89% of leaders saying they enjoy positive results.
GenAI is creating remarkable opportunities to reimagine how work gets done, which is rightfully generating a great deal of excitement. However, shadow AI, when individuals use commonly available tools like ChatGPT, Grok, or Perplexity without oversight at work, potentially raises serious data privacy and compliance concerns. The corporate benefits of GenAI’s potential are truly unlocked when leaders drive secure, strategic adoption with risk management as a priority.
Ulf Persson, CEO at ABBYY
Access the full State of Intelligent Automation: GenAI Disillusionment and AI Wishlist report at https://www.abbyy.com/resources/report/state-of-intelligent-automation-genai-2025/ for more information.
Methodology
Opinium research of 1,200 senior managers or above in companies of 100+ employees in the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Singapore. Research undertaken between 20th of June and 8th of July 2025.
This press announcement is a global summarization of the survey results. Please use the links below for country-specific announcements:
About ABBYY
ABBYY helps organizations optimize processes, accelerate decisions, and drive better outcomes with Process AI and Document AI. More than 10,000 enterprises, including many Fortune 500 companies, rely on ABBYY’s 35 years of innovation to turn business data into actionable insights that improve the way we work and live. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, and offices in 13 countries, ABBYY leads the way for smarter agentic automation. For more information, visit www.abbyy.com/company and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
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