Australia and New Zealand have the highest adoption rates of generative AI in the Asia Pacific region ex China, and Australia in particular has the fourth highest genAI usage rate in the world. And now a new report suggests that the adoption has paid off: with a 44% return on investment (ROI) compared to a global average of 41%.

The ANZ pairing beats out even the US, the biggest global user of the technology, according to data from AI cloud company Snowflake, which surveyed 1,900 business and IT leaders who are actively using AI. The report, released earlier this week, shows that the majority of early adopters find AI investments are already paying for themselves both in direct financial ROI and indirect outcomes.

Why are ANZ companies so good with genAI?

The Snowflake report gives some hints: ANZ companies have a very clear use case in mind, specifically improving customer satisfaction and engagement. In fact, ANZ companies are almost 25% more likely to direct their genAI investments toward prioritising customer experience, than companies in other surveyed geographies (53% versus a 43% global average).

And ANZ companies are over 40% more likely to emphasise security and compliance than their counterparts everywhere else (55% versus a 39% global average).

That singular focus and the additional care given to security and compliance concerns have led to not just a higher than average ROI, but better decision making for the adopting organisations (91% versus 84% globally) and an impressive impact: 85% improvement to customer experience.

On top of this, 32% of ANZ organisations said they are putting more than a quarter of their next 12 months' tech budget into genAI, far ahead of the 25% global average.

Data from other industry sources adds an extra layer of corroboration. Nutanix's Enterprise Cloud Index, also released this week, found that more than 80% of ANZ organisations have a genAI strategy in place and 61% are already actively implementing it, while decision-makers appear to be taking a long-term approach to measuring the ROI of the technology.

ANZ adopters still face a major data challenge

Data quality is a persistent obstacle to genAI adoption around the world, and ANZ companies seem to have more challenges in this area than most. Snowflake's report flagged out limited databases, inefficient data management and preparation, and data silos, all areas in which ANZ companies are noticeably having more difficulties than the global average.

• Lack of data diversity: 56% versus 42% global average
• A lot of time spent on data management tasks: 62% versus 55% global average
• Difficulties in data preparation: 59% versus 51% global average
• Difficulties breaking down data silos: 76% versus 64% global average

Unsurprisingly, especially given the talent crunch and general inflation, staffing up for genAI is far more costly in this part of the world (63% versus 48% global average). Snowflake did not investigate the availability of genAI skills, but hiring managers can look forward to tight competition - Microsoft found last year that 75% of Australian business leaders consider AI skills a make-or-break in hiring.

What's the next step for genAI use cases?

Snowflake's findings suggest a few urgent priorities for organisations that want to elevate their use of genAI. One is obviously data management strategies and capabilities, including infrastructure and talent - hiring and retention will likely be a challenge in itself.

Another could be getting IT teams aligned with business teams - the report shows a significant gap between what business teams, whether sales or marketing or HR, are doing with genAI and what IT teams are aware of. With security and compliance being a priority, IT teams need to be on the same page as their colleagues.

And when planning the next fiscal year's budget, it's probably a good idea to factor in supporting software such as monitoring and dev tools alongside the above, because 61% of companies indicated that the cost of that tech is frequently higher than expected.