Examining Key Factors for Organizational Readiness towards AI Adoption in the Software Industry : A Qualitative Study

Sammanfattning: The popularity of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in various industries is increasing now more than ever before due to the ability of improving efficiency, enhancing decision-making and automating workflows. This demands that organizations need to be prepared to adopt these technologies to keep their competitive advantage and utilize the benefits in today's fast-paced business environment. There is a lack of guidance for organizations to adopt AI and further research of the organizational readiness factors is therefore needed to make sure the adoption of it is successful. The purpose of this research was to expand the knowledge of key factors that matter when organizations in the software industry want to create the best conditions before adopting the AI technologies in their business processes. The main contexts and factors were investigated with the technology-organizational-environmental (TOE) framework in synthesis with the technological readiness index (TRI) to get the perspective of both readiness and adoption. To answer the research questions that originated from the purpose, a qualitative research method was chosen where semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers with knowledge and experience in the field, as part of the empirical findings process. The most important contributing factor for readiness was communication, and the most obstructing factor was the discomfort of technological innovations such as AI. The main factors for a successful adoption were found to be the availability of slack resources and skilled labor and that the conditions of AI readiness are dealt with before adoption. The factor that could be classified as a main hindering factor in the adoption process was found to be a shortage of skilled labor in the market, with the right kind of knowledge and experience.