APAC leaders show lowest AI confidence but see steady ROI gains
The report, based on a survey of 1,620 global business leaders with a quarter of respondents from APAC and 10% from Australia, highlights that just 82% of APAC executives feel confident in their ability to leverage AI to drive business value. This figure represents the lowest confidence level among the surveyed regions, trailing the United States, where 92% express confidence.
Despite this confidence gap, AI adoption in APAC is making measurable progress. Seventy percent of business leaders in the region indicate that their current AI investments are delivering the return on investment expected, a result only slightly behind the US (82%) and ahead of Europe (69%). "The data shows that APAC is not lagging in capability, but more so in confidence," said Pascal Coubard, APAC Lead at Celonis. "AI has no borders. Businesses in Australia and across the region shouldn't see their geography as a disadvantage. The real ROI from AI will come when companies apply it to the operational core of their business, not just on the surface, but across processes like payments, collections, and supply chain execution."
The research found high awareness of generative AI (GenAI) globally, with 81% of business leaders now utilising foundational GenAI models for functions such as developer productivity, knowledge management, and customer service. GenAI-powered chatbots or virtual assistants have been deployed by 61% of surveyed organisations worldwide. The United States leads with 75% adoption, followed by APAC at 63% and Europe at 57%.
While these use cases are expanding, most organisations see themselves in the early stages of integrating AI. Sixty-four percent of leaders surveyed globally believe AI will generate significant return on investment in the coming year, while nearly three quarters (74%) plan to increase their AI budgets. Expectations are rising with this investment, and 73% of companies are aiming to launch department-specific AI use cases.
Process intelligence concerns
Confidence in the potential of AI is moderated by process challenges. More than half (58%) of business leaders surveyed feel that the current state of their processes may restrict the benefits AI can deliver, with nearly a quarter (24%) expressing strong agreement on this point. A large majority (89%) state that effective AI deployment requires a deep understanding of organisational processes — described as 'process context.' "Leaders recognise that you can't optimise what you don't understand," said Coubard. "They're increasingly aware that process visibility and intelligence are essential for unlocking the full value of enterprise AI."
In APAC, these concerns are particularly pronounced. Sixty-two percent of APAC leaders express worry over a lack of process understanding potentially limiting AI success. This is higher than the figures reported in Europe (60%) and the US (55%). Ninety-three percent of US leaders say AI requires detailed operational context to reach its potential, the highest proportion of any region surveyed.
Process mining and departmental perspectives
To tackle process visibility challenges, businesses are increasingly turning to process mining technologies. Thirty-nine percent of companies now use process mining, with over half (52%) planning to adopt such tools in the next 12 months. This technology underpins process intelligence initiatives, aiming to provide the context AI systems require.
The report notes that confidence in AI varies across organisational departments. Process and Operations leaders are the most confident in current AI use cases (76%), closely followed by Finance & Shared Services (75%), IT (73%), and Supply Chain (68%). However, only 61% of Supply Chain leaders believe AI will deliver significant return on investment in the next year, compared to 66% in Process & Operations and in IT.
Year ahead
The survey's findings point to 2025 as a pivotal period for enterprise AI. Business leaders are set to increase investment and seek refined strategies to pair AI with appropriate process context, using technologies such as process intelligence to underwrite these efforts. "AI isn't just a tech upgrade, it's a new operating model," said Coubard. "But to maximise the ROI of their AI deployments, businesses need AI powered with the process knowledge and business context provided by Celonis Process Intelligence."
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