Global AI Adoption in 2025: What Market & Polling Researchers Should Know

2025 has been the year AI tools stopped being pilot projects. IBM’s Global AI Adoption Index shows early adopters pushing deployment across the enterprise, while BCG reports that most organisations still struggle to scale value even after piloting generative AI. Over in insights and polling, the latest GreenBook GRIT Business & Innovation report spotlights generative AI as the leading emerging method, and industry surveys predict budgets will keep rising through 2026. The question is no longer “if” but “how” teams operationalise AI verbatims, thematic analysis AI, and open ended AI responsibly.

What global AI adoption headlines mean for insights teams

• BCG’s 2024 AI adoption analysis shows most enterprises still struggle to turn pilots into scaled value—a clear signal that research teams need to align roadmaps with enterprise AI strategies.
• IBM’s Global AI Adoption Index stresses that companies making progress also invest heavily in skills and governance; those lessons map directly to how insights teams should onboard AI verbatim coding.
• GreenBook’s 2024 GRIT Business & Innovation Report highlights generative AI replacing insight workflows end-to-end, reinforcing the need to blend automation with stakeholder collaboration.
• Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2025 found the majority of people worry about AI-generated misinformation, so polling teams must pair AI verbatims with transparent QA and disclosure.
• Boston Consulting Group cautions that only a small “future-built” cohort realises outsized generative AI value while 74% of firms still struggle to scale impact, underscoring the need for governance that connects model output to business outcomes.

2025 field notes from market and polling research teams

1. Hybrid workflows win. Teams that combined GPT-5 AI verbatim coding with 5–10% human QA reported cycle times dropping from days to hours while maintaining audit trails for regulators.
2. Multilingual panels go mainstream. Researchers now expect instant translation during open ended AI processing so moderators can review Spanish, German, or Polish verbatims side by side.
3. Compliance moved from “later” to “now.” Legal teams asked for automated redaction, typo correction, and event logs after seeing the Reuters trust numbers and new EU AI Act requirements.
4. Pollsters embraced real-time thematic analysis. Telephone and SMS polling platforms layered AI verbatims to flag emerging themes mid-field, letting clients adjust questionnaires on the fly.

How to operationalise these trends inside Rundux

• Map keywords to stages: tag your AI verbatims, thematic coding GPT, and open ended AI tasks inside Rundux so stakeholders see where automation creates speed.
• Document QA policies: reflect the Reuters trust insight by logging your 5% or 10% review sampling plan inside project notes and referencing audit exports.
• Refresh taxonomies quarterly: align with the MRII finding that most researchers are hands-on—schedule taxonomy retros to keep GPT-5 suggestions aligned with brand language.
• Publish outcomes: follow the Snowflake ROI example by tracking hours saved in the Rundux analytics dashboard and sharing before/after timelines with sponsors.

AI adoption now touches every part of insights and polling. Rundux helps you stay in control—streaming GPT-5 powered AI verbatim coding, correcting typos and translations automatically, and anchoring every output in a compliant audit log. Ready to modernise your workflow? Start free with €5 credit and see how fast the next 1,000 responses land in your dashboard.