Budget, ROI seen as challenges as Brazilian firms embrace genAI

Over half of Brazilian companies have implemented or are implementing generative AI, but issues such as infrastructure, costs and return on investment (ROI) are seen as obstacles.

These are some of the main findings of a study carried out by consultancy Vanson Bourne for hyperconverged infrastructure vendor Nutanix. The survey was conducted in the second half of 2024 with 1,500 global IT decision-makers and platform engineers from different industries and regions. In Brazil, Vanson surveyed 100 professionals. 

Brazil-specific insights were shared by executives during a press conference on Thursday.

"We had a meeting with customers about a week ago, bring together CIOs and IT infrastructure directors, and about 20% of those present mentioned cloud as project or investment focus. Everyone present, however, cited AI," Leandro Lopes, director of systems engineering for Nutanix in Latin America, said during the presentation.

According to the main findings of the Enterprise Cloud Index, available here, virtually all company representatives said they planned to invest in genAI, but only 50% were in the process of doing so.

Furthermore, the percentage of companies in Brazil that have not yet started implementing genAI is higher than the global average, according to Nutanix.

Among the main hurdles, 55% of Brazilian professionals cited concerns about privacy and security, involving corporate data and the use of LLMs, while 31% mentioned complexity and lack of expertise to build genAI environments.

Costs and ROI

Nutanix highlighted that cost and uncertainty about ROI were the main reasons for the slow implementation of genAI.

While 78% of respondents in Brazil said they expect a positive return on investment within three years − compared to 67% in the Americas − integration with existing IT infrastructure (70%), followed by cost of ownership and visibility of ROI (54%) are equally cited as key issues.

In other words, most companies believe genAI will provide them a return on investment in three years. They just do not know how exactly and to what extent.

Other challenges highlighted by Brazilians include lack of skills to deploy and operate AI (48%), regulatory and compliance issues (48%) and limited computing resources at companies (38%).

IT professionals and workforce

Also according to the survey, 59% of Brazilian IT professionals said they are being “pushed” by their companies to take on roles related to AI, a percentage significantly higher than the global (37%) and regional (44%) averages.

Furthermore, job-related concerns arising from AI were mentioned by 47% of Brazilian respondents, compared to a global and regional average of 34%.