Cloudera sees AI hitting reality wall as firms struggle with data engineering and security

Corporate enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI) is colliding with hard reality. A July 2025 report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Media Lab stated that 95% of corporate AI initiatives show zero return, underscoring the gap between experimentation and execution.

For Abhas Ricky, chief strategy officer at Cloudera, the numbers are unsurprising, saying that by definition, 99% of experiments in AI were supposed to fail. However, he expects enterprises to push past the initial stages. “If you have a business case defined, executed, agreed upon and aligned, you’ll commit to the experience. [This also prevents AI proof-of-concept] fatigue, even if you have a high degree of failure, because you know that [those efforts support] the business outcome.”