New global C-level study finds 48% of executives say trusted, secure data could unlock 25%+ revenue growth yet only 7% of organizations are truly AI-ready
LONDON — Veeam® Software, the Data and AI Trust Company, today unveiled new global research at VeeamON London. The new Data and AI Trust Gap report from Veeam exposes a stark and widening gap at the heart of enterprise AI. While 88% of organizations are already using or piloting AI agents, only 7% qualify as truly AI-ready and 95% say data challenges have already slowed their AI progress. As agentic AI moves from pilots into production, organizations face an urgent challenge: ensuring that the data powering those systems is visible, governed, secure and resilient.
The research, based on a global survey of 600 senior executives across financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and technology, reveals that AI adoption is scaling dramatically faster than the governance structures designed to manage it. Despite strong executive investment and intent, the ability to control, monitor, and recover from AI failures is critically underdeveloped.
Key findings show AI is scaling faster than control:
- Only 7% of organizations are truly AI-ready.
- 88% are already using or piloting AI agents.
- Only 28% are confident they can detect AI systems operating outside approved parameters.
- 95% say data challenges have already slowed AI progress.
The figures show a clear trust gap between AI adoption and the governance, visibility, and control required to support it.
“Most organizations don’t have an AI adoption problem; they have an AI trust problem,” said Anand Eswaran, CEO of Veeam. “The first phase of AI was defined by infrastructure investment, experimentation, and acceleration. The next phase will be defined by trust. With the widespread adoption of autonomous AI agents operating at machine speed, the question transitions from whether you can use AI, to whether you can ensure all your data is secure, governed, compliant and resilient. And should something go wrong, can you recover with precision? That’s how you accelerate safe AI at scale without accelerating reputational and operational risk.”
Executive Confidence Masks an Operational Reality Gap
The research uncovers a significant perception gap between the boardroom and the operational teams responsible for delivering AI outcomes. Progress frequently stalls between intent and execution: governance exists inconsistently, data is managed reactively, and ownership is assigned but fragmented.
- 65% of CEOs believe they have a full AI inventory, compared with just 48% of technical leaders.
- 52% of CEOs believe they actively lead on data, but only 41% of CISOs and 38% of CIOs agree.
- 48% of CEOs believe trusted, secure, and compliant data could unlock more than 25% revenue growth.
- 83% of CEOs feel pressure to accelerate their AI and data capabilities.
This combination of rapid AI adoption, coupled with incomplete visibility and unclear accountability, creates the conditions for failures that are difficult to detect, explain, and contain.
When AI Fails, It Won’t Look Like Downtime
As AI systems become more autonomous, the nature of failure is shifting. Risk is moving away from traditional system outages toward data-level failures that are harder to detect, explain, and contain. The research warns that machine-speed mistakes can outpace detection, forcing resilience to evolve from broad recovery to precision – restoring only what is impacted, rather than rewinding entire environments.
Among organizations running AI today, only a minority could identify within minutes:
- Which systems it accessed (29%)
- What actions it took (25%)
- What decisions it influenced (24%)
- Which data the system used (22%)
Only 40% of leaders are very confident they can isolate and precisely reverse an agentic AI failure.
Inside-Out, Outside-In: Governance is Converging on Data
The governance challenge is converging on data from two directions: internal demand and external scrutiny.
Inside organizations, unauthorized AI use is now mainstream:
- 95% report unauthorized AI use within their organization and 93% view it as a significant risk.
- Yet only 25% offer approved alternatives, meaning most are trying to suppress demand rather than govern it effectively.
- 44% say increased cyber risk is the top “Shadow AI” risk.
At the same time, regulatory pressure outside the organization is intensifying. 61% of organizations say the EU AI Act has already influenced AI investment strategies in the last 12 months, while 47% cite maintaining audit trails for AI decisions as their biggest compliance concern.
Trust Requires Ownership, Not Shared Ambiguity
The new research shows that the core barriers to progress are fragmented ownership and misaligned operating disciplines – with data, AI, and governance responsibilities often spread across teams in ways that dilute accountability and slow execution. When “everyone owns it,” no one can decisively set policy, enforce controls, or prove outcomes.
Where ownership is clearly defined, outcomes improve significantly:
- 24% more likely to detect rogue AI behavior in organizations where CISOs own AI agent risk.
- 47% less likely to detect rogue AI behavior in organizations relying on shared ownership.
Data doesn’t need another champion – it needs accountable leadership strong enough to align governance, security, privacy, compliance, and resilience.
Trust is Becoming the Operating Foundation for Enterprise AI
A clear divide is emerging between organizations that can operationalize trust and those that cannot. Organizations that successfully align ambition, visibility and governance significantly outperform their peers.
Among organizations classified as fully AI-ready, 97% report measurable business benefits from data and AI investments, compared with 48% overall, demonstrating the value of operationalizing trust at enterprise scale.
Veeam: Building the Data and AI Trust Layer
Veeam is addressing this challenge by combining data resilience, security and governance to help organizations see what data AI uses, govern how it’s accessed by humans and agents, and recover clean, trusted data with precision when incidents occur.
“The findings here leave no room for doubt. When 95% of executives say data challenges are already slowing their AI progress, the bottleneck isn’t the model – it’s trusted, governed, recoverable data,” added Eswaran. “Veeam is building the Data and AI Trust layer to give enterprises the visibility, control and precision recovery needed to scale AI safely and deliver real business value.”
About the Research
The research, undertaken between 16 March – 6 April 2026, is based on a global survey of 600 senior executives across industries including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and technology. Respondents included CEOs, CIOs, CISOs, CDOs and other senior leaders responsible for data, AI, technology and compliance, spanning organizations across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Following VeeamON London, the next stop is VeeamON Sydney on 30 July 2026, where regional leaders and customers will come together to explore how to build data resilience and enable trusted, secure AI at scale.
To view the full survey results, visit https://go.veeam.com/data-ai-trust-gap-report. For more information, visit www.veeam.com.
About Veeam Software
Veeam® Software is the Data and AI Trust Company, specializing in helping organizations ensure their data and AI are fully understood, secured, and resilient to enable the acceleration of safe AI at scale. As the market leader in both data resilience and data security posture management, Veeam is built for the convergence of identity, data, security, and AI risk.
Veeam delivers deep contextual intelligence across every data asset, identity, and AI model. The company governs access for both humans and AI agents, automates privacy, compliance, and remediation processes, and protects and recovers organizations from modern threats – including ransomware, disasters, AI errors, and ensuring the restoration of clean, trusted data. Veeam empowers organizations to move beyond simply protecting data, enabling them to activate and unlock its full potential.
Headquartered in Seattle with offices in more than 30 countries, Veeam protects over 550,000 customers worldwide, including 82% of the Fortune 500, who trust Veeam to keep their businesses running. Learn more at www.veeam.com or follow Veeam on LinkedIn @veeam-software and X @veeam.
