The vast majority of UK IT leaders have been hit by unexpected and unplanned AI costs over the past year, according to new research from software group Asana.
In a study of UK businesses, Asana found that 82% of IT decision-makers faced such costs in the past 12 months, pointing to a mismatch in cross-departmental AI integration and IT management.
According to Asana’s research, as many as six in ten IT decision-makers say they are highly or fully accountable for AI-driven business outcomes. The issue is that AI adoption is taking place across departments and outside traditional governance processes.
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An area that is particularly driving costs is governance challenges, with more than half (53%) reporting that an AI tool or agent has taken an action in the past 12 months that resulted in financial, legal, reputational or compliance harm.
“Most organisations are past asking whether their people will use AI – they already are. The challenge now is turning that into measurable business value, without losing the governance and visibility needed to manage risk,” said Christina Francis, head of UKI and Northern Europe at Asana.
“People want faster, smarter ways to work. The question is whether organisations can give them trusted, approved ways to do that, or whether they end up working around the tools entirely.”
Another issue reported is transparency, with half of UK workers saying they are not aware of how their company uses their work.
“AI is most powerful when it has context: the goals, decisions and workflows that sit around the work,” added Francis.
“But that only lands if there’s transparency built in. Employees need to understand how their work feeds AI systems and what that makes possible.
“The organisations that get ahead will be the ones that combine visibility, governance and context not as competing priorities, but as the same thing.”
