Data modernisation investment crucial for AI success

Amdocs has released the findings of a comprehensive global study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC), sponsored by Amdocs. The IDC white paper*, “AI Demands More: Enterprises Are Playing Catch-Up on Mission-Critical Data Modernization,” highlights the critical need for robust data modernization efforts to fully leverage the power of hybrid AI.

The survey, which explores the impact of generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI on service providers’ data modernization and cloud-based infrastructure roadmap, finds that enterprises are quickly realizing that deploying GenAI in isolation is unsustainable, and 78% of respondents state that GenAI will require net new investment in automated data cleaning and quality checks over the next two years.

“Effective AI solutions are built on trustworthy data, but our research shows that 50% of organizations still struggle to fully access the value of existing data resources and to ensure consistent data quality,” said Mary Johnston Turner, IDC Research Vice President for Digital Infrastructure Strategies. “The emergence of powerful agentic AI technologies to orchestrate workflows and autonomous decision-making across multiple AI models will require most organizations to invest in data modernization to ensure the levels of end-to-end data health, security and accessibility needed to deliver reliable AI results.”

Other key findings:

• 65% of respondents have accelerated their shift to a cloud-first data architecture due to GenAI: GenAI’s rapid adoption is driving service providers to expand investments in cloud computing, storage, and GPU capacity to meet growing processing demands. As cloud modernization shifts toward AI-centric architectures, service providers must balance scalability, security, and cost control while strategically navigating data governance challenges and the high costs of AI infrastructure.

• 76% of service providers expect that “service-as-a-software” enabled by agentic AI will drive major or meaningful transformation across their organization’s business model in the coming years.

• 73% of respondents expect agentic AI to require increased data modernization investments: Agentic AI is reshaping business operations by enabling automated decision-making, dynamic forecasting, and adaptive customer interactions across multiple departments, from sales and marketing to operations and cybersecurity. Unlike traditional AI models that function in silos, organizations are modernizing their data infrastructure to support agentic AI-driven interoperability, leveraging cloud-based platforms to ensure seamless collaboration across use cases.

• The typical service provider estimates that just 50% of internal data is currently accessible by the organization’s AI models and analytics.

“Enterprises increasingly recognize the importance of combining multiple AI capabilities – ranging from NLP to ML, predictive AI to generative AI – in order to achieve scalable, accurate and valuable and dynamic business outcomes,” said Anthony Goonetilleke, Group President of Technology and Head of Strategy at Amdocs. “However, reaching the full promise of GenAI means addressing data standardization, modernization and governance while embracing scalable cloud infrastructure. Companies that prioritize developing a solid data foundation today will be best positioned to drive GenAI’s long-term business impact.”