LXT, a provider of industry-leading AI data solutions, today released its fourth annual executive survey, The Path to AI Maturity. Organizations are rapidly advancing in the maturity of their AI implementations, with more than three-quarters reporting AI is now operational, and less than twenty percent only experimenting with it. Generative AI, which still has more experimenters, is advancing at an even faster pace, with company-wide transformational use (where AI is a part of business DNA) already surpassing traditional AI implementations.
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To achieve these levels of maturity, half of all organizations surveyed invest between $1-50 million, while the number of companies investing between $50 and $500 million has more than doubled, and those who report investing more than $500 million is up seven-fold.
“As traditional AI implementations become operational across entire organizations and industries,” said Mohammad Omar, LXT Founder and CEO, “we are also beginning to see the transformative potential of agentic and gen AI applications. To power these innovations, enterprises report a growing need for high-quality data and as they evolve in AI maturity, their demand for domain specific expertise and highly specialized data solutions increases as well.”
In early 2025, LXT commissioned Reputation Leaders to survey 200 senior decision-makers (two-thirds C-suite) with verified relevant AI experience at US firms with annual revenue of over $100 million and a company size of more than 500 employees.
Four of five report traditional AI in operations, but gen AI is even more transformational
In just four years, mature adoption of traditional AI has more than doubled to 83% from only 40%, while the share of companies only experimenting with AI has plummeted from 60% in 2022 to just 17% in 2025. Today, many companies (32%) find themselves at an operational level, where AI actively supports business functions, while 35% have reached systemic and 16% have reached transformational levels.
Three-quarters (75%) of organizations already utilize generative AI at an operational or systemic level, actively generating business value or transforming processes. Notably, 19% have reached the transformational stage (where AI is a part of business DNA), surpassing traditional AI (16%) at the same stage of maturity. Still, 24% of organizations remain in the early phases of gen AI maturity, with just 3% in the awareness stage and 21% still only experimenting.
In 2025, AI investment remains measured, but budgets above $500 million are up significantly
Last year was a transitional one as organizations paused to reset their AI strategies amidst the rise of gen AI and shifting expectations around compliance, training data, and deployment. This year, as in 2024, half (47% vs. 54%) of all organizations continue to invest between $1-50 million.
The number of companies in our survey investing between $50 and $500 million has more than doubled (30% vs. 13%), and the number of those investing more than $500M is up significantly (7% vs. 1%). Also, importantly, AI remains accessible to a wide range of organizations: 15% operate with budgets under $1 million.
In addition, AI investments are back to a primary focus on training data, software, and product development. Investments in hardware, analytics, and talent are also significant.
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High-quality and accurate data is a top priority, and the need only increases with AI maturity
94% of organizations expect their need for training data to increase (up from 60% last year), with a quarter anticipating a significant rise. Similarly, 80% of organizations prioritize high-quality, accurate data to fuel AI performance. AI leaders also focus on regulatory compliance (52%) and cost-effective data acquisition (50%).
As organizations become AI mature, the importance of high-quality training data only grows. Demand for domain or subject matter expert data also grows with AI maturity.
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