How to Navigate the AI Seas Without Getting Shipwrecked

There’s a paradox emerging at the center of AI development. While adoption continues to accelerate – with 78% of organizations now using AI in at least one business function – recent MIT research found that 95% of GenAI pilots fail to deliver returns, exposing a stark divide between successful and stalled AI initiatives. At Nasuni’s Unify Dallas session on June 26th, 2025, I had the opportunity to discuss the AI market, how ePlus can help customers in determining AI maturity for organizations, and the essential elements for an effective AI security strategy.

AI: A Landscape in Flux

ePlus’ AI Readiness survey 2025 revealed that 74.8% of IT professionals plan to implement GenAI within the next 12 months, with trending areas including AI copilots, contact center automation, and AI-driven security.

But undermining this momentum, Gartner predicts that 30% of GenAI projects will be abandoned after Proof of Concept (POC) by the end of 2025. Our survey confirmed that skills gaps, costs, and security worries are the biggest barriers to adoption.

Another factor that is looming large is the regulatory landscape and what it means for the use of AI. In June 2025, for example, the state of Texas enacted the Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act (TRAIGA), or HB 149, which becomes effective on January 1, 2026. The Act seeks to protect public safety, individual rights, and privacy while encouraging the safe advancement of AI technology in Texas. This law, and other potential legislation like it, establish legal requirements that organizations must consider as they roll out AI capabilities.

How to Overcome Barriers and Get Started

Like any other journey, you have to know where you are and where you want to go, before you begin. As organizations navigate changing technology landscapes, including AI, they need to understand where they are exactly (their current state and AI maturity level) and what tools they can leverage to move toward the outcomes they desire.

When it comes to AI, the journey stages as ePlus recognizes them are defined below:

• AI Curious: Organizations at this stage are exploring AI possibilities but without a defined strategy. They have limited AI experience and may struggle with data silos.
• AI Ready: These organizations have an established data and AI strategy, with clearly defined AI use cases. They’re ready to build an AI-optimized infrastructure to accelerate business outcomes.
• AI Mature: These are advanced adopters for whom AI is a core driver of innovation. Organizations at this stage are already building GenAI applications that are continuously optimizing for capability and cost.

According to the AI Readiness survey 2025 mentioned earlier, there was a mixed response from participants in terms of where they are in their AI journey. Almost 43 percent of organizations identified as AI Curious (42.6%), just over 28% identified as AI Ready (28.2%) and more than 24% identified as AI Mature (24.3%). Only around 4.9% of respondents are yet to begin their AI Journey.

Wherever your organization is on the scale, strategic planning is key. Some of the ways ePlus helps clients move from curious to ready to mature include:

• AI Envisioning Workshop: Helps customers identify use cases and develop their AI strategy.
• Use Case Development: Helps organizations align with their business objectives as they fully explore two or more top use cases.
• AI Policy and Governance: Perform data governance gap analysis, understanding ethical and regulatory AI considerations.
• Data Strategy: Data is the foundation for AI. This service helps organizations develop a modern data strategy that breaks down silos, aligns with specific AI goals, and ensures alignment of business initiatives and data governance.
• Proof of Concept: Helps customers with Proof-of-Concept platform selection and deployment, as well as measure and iterate and report on success metrics.

With a clear AI strategy and plan, organizations have a roadmap to move forward. But they must not overlook the guardrails needed for AI use and data protection.

Breaking Down AI Security and Governance

AI introduces additional risk, privacy, and liability concerns. Organizations must ensure their policy and technology can provide the necessary governance and oversight that is required.

It’s not surprising that regulation concerns remain top of mind for IT leaders, with 78.2% of respondents on the ePlus readiness survey only somewhat to moderately confident in their ability to regulate access to and governance of GenAI applications.

To help build confidence, apply these three lenses when looking at AI security:

• Process: Build your AI security policies and procedures and establish your AI governance structure. Data is the foundation for your AI initiatives. Performing a data risk assessment can help to determine your current state and facilitate the next step.
• People: Ensure that your employees are trained to recognize and defend against AI threats by updating your training program to reflect AI risks. Make sure you put appropriate access controls in place across your organization.
• Technology: From a technology perspective, determine tools to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from AI-related incidents.

Our Partnership: Your Data and Security Strategy

All sustainable AI projects share one trait: they successfully balance innovation with risk management and regulatory compliance.

The ePlus and Nasuni partnership blends the best of our strengths, combining AI consultancy and SecOps solutions with scalable, high-performance, AI-ready data infrastructure to help you ace that balancing act.

To learn more about how ePlus and Nasuni can help you with your AI journey, visit https://eplus.com/solutions/ai/ai-journey-support or click here to contact an ePlus AI security expert today.