Most CIOs & CTOs Have Scrapped an AI Project Over Outdated Systems, Survey Finds

A new poll of 945 CIOs and CTOs points to aging infrastructure, bubble fears, and government uncertainty as brakes on corporate AI. Legacy systems and old applications are forcing large companies to abandon AI projects at a striking rate, according to a new survey from GFT Technologies, a firm that specializes in infrastructure modernization. Eighty-four percent of chief information and technology officers said limits in their older systems have forced them to cancel at least one AI pilot or project, and nearly a quarter of them said it happened more than once.

The finding comes from polling of 945 CIOs and CTOs at companies with at least $500 million in annual revenue across 19 countries, fielded in August by Wakefield Research on behalf of GFT Technologies. Beyond the legacy-system problem, the survey also found widespread doubt that AI spending is paying off and rising anxiety among the executives tasked with making it work.

Virtually every company surveyed (99%) said its AI runs on or connects to legacy systems not built with AI in mind, and 95% said those systems slow…