— Zapier, the most connected AI orchestration platform, today released findings from a survey examining the state of AI adoption across U.S. enterprises. The results are mixed: Although 92% of enterprises are treating AI as a priority, they are experiencing technical and organizational roadblocks. The findings serve as a timely reminder about the challenges of AI implementation, as noted in MIT’s study, State of AI in Business in 2025. They also offer new perspectives on enterprise technology, workflow changes, and the cultural issues tied to digital adoption.

"There's a huge gap between wanting AI and actually making it work in complex enterprise environments," said Emily Mabie, AI Automation Engineer at Zapier. "Our survey shows the biggest barriers aren't about believing in AI's potential. They're about integrating AI with their existing systems, skill gaps, high costs, and vendor lock-in."

Key Survey Findings

• 56% of enterprise leaders consider themselves "enthusiastic champions" of AI adoption, with another 28% cautiously optimistic. Only 4% are actively resistant, and just 2% say that they haven't considered implementing AI.
• Integration problems dominate: 78% of enterprises struggle to connect AI tools with existing systems, with 53% rating integration as moderately to extremely difficult.
• Vendor challenges are real: 45% cite high costs as a barrier, 38% lack trust in vendor security, and 33% fear vendor lock-in.
• Skills matter: 35% of leaders cite AI skill gaps among employees as a barrier to adoption.
• Competitive pressure is intense: 81% of companies feel pressure to speed up AI adoption to keep pace with competitors, with 41% saying slow rollouts have caused them to fall behind.

The Human and Cultural Story Behind the Numbers

Unlike stories that only highlight fears of losing jobs, Zapier’s research points to more practical barriers. Data quality issues (29%), IT infrastructure problems (27%), and the difficulty of measuring ROI are key concerns.  

The survey also shows a divide between departments: IT is over 10 times more likely to lead AI acceleration than sales, marketing, HR, or customer service teams. Yet, IT and the C-suite are also the departments most likely to hinder AI adoption due to infrastructure limitations and approval processes.

"The story here isn't about people resisting AI," Mabie added. "It's about organizations trying to manage a really complicated situation. They need to bring in transformative technology while handling security, governance, legacy systems, and teams that have different levels of AI knowledge."

The Execution Gap in Enterprise AI

The survey results come at a key time when businesses are making large investments in AI. While people often talk about fears of job loss or worker hesitance, the data shows a more basic problem. Most organizations do not have the infrastructure, integration capabilities, and teamwork needed to implement AI successfully on a large scale.

This gap between ambition and execution is impacting businesses in key areas. Companies that report slow AI rollouts say they have fallen behind competitors (41%), missed productivity gains (39%), and experienced delayed returns on investment (37%). 

Recommendations

Based on the survey findings, Zapier has the following recommendations:

• Make sure the AI tools in your tech stack connect with each other.
• Focus on building automated AI workflows across your enterprise.
• Orchestrate AI as part of unified, company-wide business processes.
• Democratize AI by making it accessible to team members regardless of their technical background, while maintaining IT oversight for compliance and security.

Full survey results see: https://zapier.com/blog/ai-resistance-survey/