Overcoming the top 5 barriers to AI Adoption (and how Oraion helps)
By David Kernan
Head of Product & Data at Oraion
AI has the potential to transform how we do business, but adopting AI successfully is not easy. In fact, a recent CIO survey highlighted the top five barriers that often cause AI initiatives to stumble. As someone who works closely with enterprises on AI projects, I’ve seen these challenges firsthand. Today, I want to share how we designed Oraion, our agentic AI platform, to address each of these barriers head-on. By tackling these obstacles pragmatically (with a dash of vision for the future), we ensure that using Oraion sets your organisation up for AI success.
Let’s dive into each barrier and explore how Oraion provides a solution:
1. Poor Data Quality
The Challenge: Garbage in, garbage out – AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on. It’s no surprise that poor data quality is cited as the #1 inhibitor causing AI projects to fall short of expectations . Many organisations struggle with data silos, inconsistent formats, and outdated information. With the rise of generative AI, this challenge is magnified – literally 100% of an organisation’s data (documents, videos, policies, etc.) can come into play for AI, far beyond the tiny datasets we’re used to. Ensuring data is accurate, up-to-date, and accessible has become a foundational step for AI adoption.
How Oraion Solves It: We built Oraion to be your “single source of truth” for enterprise data . Oraion connects to all your disparate systems and consolidates data from over 300+ sources – from modern cloud apps to legacy databases like Oracle – into one unified platform. By breaking down data silos (much like forward-thinking CIOs are doing via data governance and cloud consolidation), Oraion ensures that your AI is drawing from complete, consistent information.
Even more importantly, Oraion’s agentic AI actively helps improve data quality. Instead of requiring you to clean every dataset upfront, Oraion encourages you to interrogate your data in natural language and discover gaps or inconsistencies. For example, you can ask Oraion a complex question across multiple data sources, if the answer reveals missing or outdated info, you’ve instantly pinpointed where data needs improvement. This aligns with the modern approach of using AI itself to find data quality issues, in fact Oraion will soon allow Data Stewards to correct data in the Single Source of Truth via agent chat with full audit and lineage.
In short, Oraion not only centralises your data but also acts as a watchdog for data quality, highlighting areas to refine and will also soon offer a mechanism for doing the refinement. The result is trusted, high-quality data feeding your AI models, so you get insights you can count on.
2. Lack of In-House Expertise
The Challenge: AI talent is scarce, and not every organisation has a crack team of data scientists on staff. In a recent survey, 57% of professionals admitted they aren’t keeping up with AI developments, and less than half have received any AI training. This skills gap can stall AI projects – if your people don’t know how to use AI tools, those tools won’t deliver value. Traditional solutions involve extensive training programs and hiring expensive experts, but that’s not always feasible or fast enough. As one tech leader put it, integrating AI is “a huge change management undertaking”, and without the right knowledge, adoption will fall short.
How Oraion Solves It: Oraion is designed to make AI accessible to every team member, regardless of their technical background. We’ve done this by creating an interface that anyone can use: you can literally chat with your data in plain English. No coding, no SQL required (but if SQL is your thing, you can still do that too!).
By asking questions in natural language, whether in the Oraion platform or via tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, your employees get instant, clear answers from the data as easily as having a conversation. This dramatically lowers the barrier to entry; a business analyst or operations manager can start using AI-driven insights on day one without specialised training.
Beyond ease-of-use, Oraion helps your team learn by doing. Instead of sending everyone off to lengthy classes, you can stand up Oraion and let employees experiment hands-on with a safe, governed AI environment. This echoes expert advice that giving people access to AI and allowing them to learn by doing, closes the skills gap faster . We’ve seen teams quickly become comfortable with AI once they realise they can ask questions and get results immediately, in context. It’s like having a virtual data expert on call 24/7 to support them, in fact, Oraion has been described as “a supercharged analyst on the team who never sleeps” by one customer . With Oraion augmenting your staff, your existing talent can achieve far more, and they organically grow their AI expertise through daily use. In short, you don’t need an army of PhDs, Oraion empowers your current people to be AI heroes.
3. Finding Use Cases that Compete for Resources
The Challenge: Even if you believe in AI, you still have to justify AI projects in business terms. Every company has limited budget and manpower, and AI initiatives must compete with other priorities for those resources. One CIO described the struggle well: the challenge is identifying “the right business cases – where AI can drive real, measurable value without adding unnecessary complexity.” It’s easy to get caught up in AI hype, but success requires a clear purpose and ROI – whether it’s reducing cost, increasing speed, or improving customer experience. In short, AI projects need quick wins and obvious value to earn their place at the table.
How Oraion Solves It: We built Oraion to deliver immediate, tangible value, helping your AI initiatives prove themselves quickly. First, Oraion integrates into your existing workflows in days, not months, so you can stand up a pilot project fast (one client noted that integrating Oraion was “remarkably straightforward” with “seamless onboarding” ). Once live, Oraion provides a “direct line from raw data to clear decision-making” integrating easily without disrupting your operations. This means you can start solving a real business problem almost immediately. For example, if your customer support process is bogged down, you could deploy Oraion’s AI agents to handle routine inquiries or surface insights from support data. If your finance team spends weeks analysing investments or forecasts, Oraion can crunch those numbers in a fraction of the time – as one partner at a capital firm shared, tasks that “used to take weeks of manual analysis are now done in hours, with better accuracy” using Oraion. These quick wins demonstrate concrete improvements (time saved, efficiency gained, accuracy improved), giving you the evidence you need to justify further investment.
Oraion also helps align AI projects with strategic business goals. Because the platform can tackle a wide range of use cases, from boosting productivity to enhancing decision-making, we always advise customers to start with their most pressing issue (the one keeping the C-suite up at night). This echoes the wisdom that the best place to begin is “the most strategic issue the C-suite is troubled by” .
By targeting a high-impact use case and rapidly delivering results, Oraion ensures your AI initiative isn’t just a science experiment; it’s a core business improvement. Moreover, Oraion provides built-in analytics and monitoring, so you can set clear KPIs and feedback loops for your AI projects (for instance, track how much faster a process becomes or the quality gains in output). This data-driven approach keeps the project accountable and aligned with ROI, exactly what stakeholders need to see. In summary, Oraion helps you pick the right battles and win them quickly turning AI from a competitive resource drain into a must-have investment.
4. Outdated Legacy Systems
The Challenge: Enterprises often carry the baggage of legacy systems and archaic applications. These older systems were never designed with AI in mind, some store only minimal data (due to old storage limitations) and many don’t integrate easily with modern AI tools. In fact, outdated applications are frequently cited as outright roadblocks to AI adoption. Replacing or upgrading these systems can be extremely costly and time-consuming, so businesses get stuck: they want AI capabilities, but their infrastructure isn’t up to par. It’s a classic catch-22 that can stall AI initiatives indefinitely. As one tech leader warned, “you can’t just bolt a fancy AI onto a broken foundation and hope for the best”. Without a way to bridge the gap to legacy tech, AI projects struggle or even fail.
How Oraion Solves It: Oraion was built with integration at its core, precisely to tackle this legacy challenge. Rather than forcing you to rip-and-replace your existing systems, Oraion meets you where you are. Our platform seamlessly connects into your enterprise’s existing workflows and databases – it comes with connectors for 300+ platforms, from Slack and Salesforce to Hubspot, Workday, and even traditional systems like Oracle. In practice, this means Oraion can pull in data from that decades-old ERP or that clunky CRM, and bring it into the AI fold with (relative) ease. We essentially create a unified layer on top of your legacy and modern systems, so an AI application can draw from all your data without requiring a massive backend overhaul.
Because Oraion can also act as a centralised data store if needed , some clients choose to gradually modernise their infrastructure by funneling data into Oraion’s cloud-native repository. Others keep their legacy systems in place and let Oraion handle the translation and analysis on top, avoiding disruption. In both cases, the outcome is the same: outdated systems no longer block AI adoption. You can finally apply AI to all that valuable historical data sitting in silos. And you can deliver modern, AI-powered experiences (like natural language data queries, real-time alerts, etc.) without waiting on a full IT modernisation project. By smoothing over the rough edges of legacy tech, Oraion future-proofs your architecture and lets you start reaping AI benefits today, not years from now.
5. Sabotage by Employees
The Challenge: This one is less technical but just as critical – employee resistance. A surprising recent study found that 31% of workers admitted to actively sabotaging their organisation’s AI efforts . That’s almost a third of employees! This sabotage can be as simple as refusing to use a new AI tool, or as damaging as undermining data quality or output on purpose. Why would anyone do this? Often it stems from fear – fear that AI will make their skills obsolete or even replace their jobs – as well as a lack of understanding of AI’s benefits and general resistance to change . If the people meant to use AI are pushing back, even the best technology will falter. Overcoming this barrier requires a change in culture and mindset across the organisation.
How Oraion Solves It: We believe the key to winning over employees is to make AI their ally, not their enemy. From day one, Oraion’s philosophy has been that AI should serve humans, not replace them. We designed the platform to augment people’s work, handling the drudge work and information overload, so that humans can focus on more meaningful, high-value tasks.
When employees see this in action, their fear turns into relief (and even excitement). For example, Oraion might automate the tedious task of compiling weekly reports or combing through logs, freeing an employee to spend more time with clients or on creative problem-solving. Skillsoft CIO Orla Daly noted that when workers see AI reducing tedious admin time and giving them more time for customers, they become far more receptive. We’ve witnessed the same: users realise Oraion isn’t here to take jobs – it’s here to take the boring stuff off their plate.
Oraion also helps by engaging employees directly in the AI process. Because the interface is so user-friendly (chatting in natural language), employees at all levels can play with the tool and see results firsthand. This demystifies AI – it’s not a black box only data scientists understand, but a daily assistant that they control. We encourage our client organisations to identify AI champions internally and have teams share success stories (for instance, how the support team resolved tickets 30% faster thanks to Oraion’s insights). This peer-driven approach builds excitement and buy-in, as people see colleagues benefiting from AI rather than being displaced by it. Leadership plays a role too: we work closely with executives to help them demonstrate AI’s positive impact on the workforce, whether it’s through proofs of concept or dashboards that highlight time saved and wins achieved.
When leaders actively promote an augmentation mindset and celebrate employees for using AI, it sends a clear message that Oraion is here to empower the team, not cut it down. Over time, we’ve seen skepticism melt away and even former naysayers become advocates (sometimes even developing new AI-driven ideas for their department). By fostering a culture of trust, continuous learning, and open communication around AI, Oraion helps turn that fear into fascination and resistance into resilience.
Conclusion: From Barriers to Breakthroughs
Adopting AI in the enterprise is a journey fraught with obstacles – from messy data and talent gaps to competing priorities, legacy roadblocks, and cultural resistance. These barriers are very real, but they are not insurmountable. With the right strategy and tools, each challenge can be overcome. At Oraion, we set out to build not just an AI platform, but a complete solution to AI adoption hurdles. By ensuring your data is trustworthy, your people are enabled, your projects deliver value, your technology plays nicely, and your teams embrace change, we remove the friction that has held so many companies back from AI success.
The result? You can move past the pilot purgatory and start scaling AI initiatives that truly transform your business. Imagine a world where accurate insights are at your fingertips, decisions that once took weeks happen in minutes, your legacy data works hand-in-hand with cutting-edge AI, and your employees are excited to collaborate with AI tools. This isn’t a distant vision – it’s happening now for organisations that have chosen a pragmatic, barrier-busting approach.
In my experience, the companies that will lead in the next decade are those who boldly address these five areas today. AI success is as much about strategy and mindset as it is about algorithms. By partnering with a platform like Oraion (and following the best practices we’ve discussed), you can turn AI from a daunting challenge into a driving force for innovation and growth. The barriers to AI adoption may be significant, but with the right approach, you’ll find they quickly turn into breakthroughs. I’m excited to see what you achieve when those barriers fall – and I’m confident that with Oraion by your side, you’ll not only meet the AI moment, but master it.
Let’s knock down those barriers and unlock the real promise of AI, together.
