Most Asian SMEs Stall at AI Pilots Due to Poor Data Foundations, UOB Study Finds

A UOB survey of regional business owners found that while 65% of companies have adopted AI in some form, only 15% have reached advanced capability. The study identified data and system readiness, funding, and talent as the top barriers, each cited by roughly 39–47% of respondents. A 28-point digitalisation gap exists between large enterprises and small ones, largely because bigger firms have structured systems where data is stored and maintained consistently. Experts argue that AI pilots often succeed on manually cleaned sample data but collapse in production because no underlying data infrastructure exists. The recommended path is to first establish clean master data and a unified transaction system before layering AI on top.