AI Magazine January 2026 | Page 19

THE MONTH IN NUMBERS

Source: IBM

68 % cite security concerns

as top AI scaling barrier

Data breaches, privacy risks and AI trustworthiness represent the primary obstacle to scaling successful pilots, alongside IT complexity challenges with legacy system integration

66 % of EMEA enterprises report AI productivity gains

IBM’ s survey of 3,500 senior executives across ten countries reveals two-thirds of organisations have achieved significant operational productivity improvements using AI

72 % of large enterprises vs 55 % of SMEs see AI gains

Productivity benefits are unevenly distributed across organisation sizes. Large enterprises( 1,001-5,000 employees) report significantly higher AI-driven improvements than smaller firms aimagazine. com 19