Nearly 80% of Enterprises Say AI Is Held Back by Data Access Challenges, New Cloudera Report Finds

Cloudera released its Data Readiness Index survey, which examined how prepared enterprises are to support Artificial Intelligence (AI) at scale. The report said many organizations report adopting AI in core business processes while still facing data foundation constraints tied to data access across environments. The gap points to what the survey described as an “AI readiness illusion,” where adoption outpaces readiness.

Survey results showed a high rate of AI integration claims: 96% reported integrating AI into core business processes, and 85% said they have a clear data strategy. Still, nearly 4 out of 5, or about 80%, said AI and data initiatives were constrained by limited data access across environments. The survey also described ongoing difficulty turning AI initiatives into consistent returns on investment.

Respondents listed reasons AI initiatives fall short, including data quality (22%), cost overruns (16%), and poor integration into existing workflows (15%). Infrastructure performance constraints also appeared in the results, with 73% reporting hindrances to operational initiatives. On data fundamentals, 84% said they felt confident in the accuracy, completeness, and alignment of their organization’s data, but fewer reported full governance.

Less than one in five, 18%, said their data was fully governed, while 71% said most data was governed. The report said data readiness varied by industry, citing different levels of visibility and access for telecommunications, financial services, and public sector respondents. “Enterprises aren’t struggling to adopt AI, they’re struggling to operationalize it beyond experiments,” said Sergio Gago, Chief Technology Officer at Cloudera. “AI is only as effective as the data that fuels it. Without seamless access to all their data, organizations limit the accuracy, trust, and business value that AI can deliver. You can’t do AI without data.”

The survey was commissioned by Cloudera and fielded by Researchscape, covering views of 1,270 IT leaders in AMER, EMEA, and APAC regions; it Radio Access Network (RAN) from January 22, 2026, to March 3, 2026, and results were weighted to be representative of the overall GDP of surveyed countries.