2025 ABBYY Survey Reveals Australian Disillusionment with GenAI
Challenges Sparked by BYOS are Causing Shadow IT Risks
New survey results from ABBYY’s State of Intelligent Automation: GenAI Disillusionment report pinpoints the challenges Australian business leaders are facing as they implement generative AI (GenAI) technology – leading to the need to use other AI tools to improve outputs.
Based on the survey by Opinium Research, commissioned by ABBYY, Australian business leaders cite training (33%) and integration (26%), as well as staff misuse (23%) as challenges with implementation. In addition, 29% did not have proper governance, 17% said it was too expensive and 16% had problems with hallucinations – when incorrect information is provided.
Over nine in 10 businesses saw improvements once they supplemented GenAI with complementary tools—with IT decision makers using Document AI (37%) and Process Intelligence (31%), AI agents (30%) and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) (19%).
Adding these technologies resulted in increased satisfaction among Australian businesses, with many seeing better output consistency and existing workflow integration (45%). Australian business leaders also saw an increase in cost efficiency (43%), trust (40%) and reliable results (38%) with implementation.
Businesses are spending money on GenAI tools that promise more than they can provide. In some cases, they don’t even need it. Before moving forward with leveraging GenAI tools or agentic AI, companies need to first evaluate their current processes and create a visibility map of their workflow with data analytics tools such as process intelligence. Before moving forward with leveraging GenAI tools or agentic AI, 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 showed over a fifth of respondents are experiencing “Shadow AI,” — AI tools used without IT oversight—Bring Your Own Software (BYOS), rather than as part of management-driven initiatives. In fact, four in ten (40%) Australian business leaders admitting that a driving factor for investment was that employees were already using GenAI on a BYOS basis. This was higher than other regions such the UK (39%) and France (32%).
Generally, staff are optimistic about GenAI, with 85% of leaders saying they enjoy positive results. Half of staff (50%) say it helps reduce workload and supports creativity, while 43% use it to “make them look smarter and more professional”. Given a wish list of improvements to GenAI, 19% of Australian workers requested GenAI would admit when it didn’t know the answer – this was higher than workers in the UK (15%) and Germany (13%).
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
While nearly all (97%) expect GenAI budgets to rise, most increases will be modest (up to 20%). This trend reveals Australian businesses as cautious optimists, with 68% of budgets projected to increase up to 20%.
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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