Organisations that put stronger governance, data quality and auditability measures around artificial intelligence are significantly more likely to report higher returns from their AI investments, according to a report by SAS and research firm IDC.
The second annual Data and AI Impact Report: The New Economics of Trust found that organisations applying trustworthy AI practices were 15 times more likely to report strong or high returns on investment, with 62% reporting such returns compared with 4% of organizations with weaker practices.
The IDC report is based on a survey of 2,699 decision-makers with knowledge of or influence over their organizations' data and AI initiatives across 28 countries and four industries: banking, insurance, life sciences and the public sector.
Among the sector findings, 85% of AI-leading banks had established governance frameworks, compared with 29% of lagging organisations. In the public sector, 41% of leaders said they planned to increase investment in trustworthy AI by more than 20% in the coming year.
Organisations with the strongest trustworthy AI measures also reported 1.85 times greater gains across 13 business outcomes, including revenue growth, cost savings and customer experience, stated the IDC report.
"When AI works, it's incredibly impactful," stated SAS Chief Technology Officer Bryan Harris. The organisations need to incorporate domain expertise into AI workflows while maintaining human oversight, particularly as AI systems become more autonomous, he added.
IDC Vice President Chris Marshall said stronger oversight, explainability, accountability and data foundations were increasingly important as companies expanded their use of AI.
UAE sees rise in AI trustworthiness
The report found that the UAE's Trustworthiness Index rose by 30.2 points to 65.7 in 2026, above the global benchmark.
Michel Ghorayeb, the Managing Director of SAS UAE, attributed the increase to the rapid adoption of AI governance across the UAE's government and private sectors, supported by national and Dubai-level AI initiatives.
Data quality and governance was identified as the leading reliability priority among UAE organizations, cited by 62.2% of respondents. However, only 13.5% said they mandate data-quality processes for every AI project, highlighting a gap between stated priorities and implementation, the report said.
Explainability remains a key concern
The report found that employees frequently override AI-generated recommendations, with 97.2% of respondents saying they do so in at least some cases.
The leading reason for overriding an AI recommendation, regardless of whether the output was considered correct, was the system's inability to explain how it reached its decision.
Trust also declined from 76% for generative AI systems to 66% for agentic AI systems, according to the survey.
In the UAE, insufficient explanation was the leading reason for overriding AI recommendations, cited by 41.1% of respondents.-TradeArabia News Service
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