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A new global study by data and AI leader SAS reveals that trust in emerging technologies such as Generative AI (GenAI) is surging globally, despite most organizations failing to implement essential governance and ethical safeguards.
The research, which surveyed IT and business leaders across several continents, found that companies prioritizing the responsible deployment of AI – through practices such as governance, explainability, and ethical safeguards – were 60% more likely to double the Return on Investment (ROI) of their AI projects.
Despite this clear financial incentive, only 40% of organizations worldwide are investing to make their AI systems trustworthy.
The study identifies a significant “trust dilemma,” where perception is dangerously disconnected from reality. Globally, and especially in Europe, emerging AI forms such as GenAI and agentic AI are paradoxically trusted far more than established, explainable traditional AI systems, such as machine learning.
Nearly half of European respondents reported “complete trust” in GenAI, a staggering level of confidence given the technology’s rapid, ungoverned growth.
This overconfidence creates a “danger zone”: almost a third (32%) of organizations in the UK fall into this category, expressing complete trust in their AI systems but failing to back it up with a corresponding degree of investment in delivering trustworthy governance.
Furthermore, only 8% of UK organizations report a significant degree of alignment between their trust in AI and the practical actions they are taking to implement safeguards, signalling a worrying gap between intent and execution.
In the UK, the focus on data privacy and compliance acts as both a constraint and a catalyst. UK decision-makers are far more likely than their global peers to cite data privacy challenges as a major barrier, reflecting the country’s stringent regulatory environment.
The findings underscore a crucial warning from experts: while GenAI’s humanlike interaction encourages rapid enthusiasm, organizations must ask themselves if GenAI is truly trustworthy before applying the necessary guardrails.
For AI to deliver lasting business impact, leaders must close this trust-action gap by strengthening governance, data quality, and responsible practices to ensure innovation is balanced with resilience.
IDC Data and AI Impact Report: The Trust Imperative
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