What Impact Will Current Economic Uncertainty Have on AI?

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Artificial Intelligence  

In the last couple of years, artificial intelligence has become one of the biggest areas of investment for many organizations, and even entire industries. Broadly speaking, that investment is set to continue, but I can’t help feeling that 2025 may be a bit of a bump in the road

In different parts of the world, there is still political uncertainty. Some countries are dealing with the possibility, or reality, of tariffs, and inflation continues to be stubbornly resisting efforts to keep it under control. On top of that, there are still supply chain concerns impacting a number of regions and industries, and consumer confidence is, at best, fragile.

In this environment, I am seeing a number of organizations consolidate their strategic and discretionary investments around either core competencies, or fundamental operational challenges that need to be addressed. And for many of those organizations, there isn’t much overlap between those priorities and AI. AI is still seen as relatively niche, as an enhancement to current capabilities, but not something that is essential to the core operations of the business.

That doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to leverage AI at all, but it does mean that they are pausing any new investment unless AI is viewed as critical to the success of the project. For example, I know of one organization that is continuing to…

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