The State of the Cloud, 2024

Businesses are Leveraging AI and Cloud for Continued Success

According to business respondents to the 2024 Global Cloud User Survey, artificial intelligence (AI) has now surpassed cloud as the most important aspect of digital transformation. As such, companies continue to build hybrid, multicloud environments to support AI deployments that meet business goals, such as revenue growth, improved customer experience, and operational efficiency. In the 13th annual survey of IT decision-makers responsible for cloud implementations, respondents representing a range of industries, company sizes, and regions of the world share their perceptions, plans, and behaviors related to cloud infrastructure, choice of a public cloud provider, data growth, and managed services.

Notable findings include:

• Businesses view hybrid and multicloud environments as critical to business success, with 73% of respondents saying that a successful, competitive business requires a strategic, seamless hybrid or multicloud environment.
• Nearly 57% of business applications are cloud-native, with 43% remaining in legacy infrastructures. The primary reasons that businesses keep some apps on premises are related to security, sustainability, and the leverage of existing investments.

The survey results offer enterprises and IT service providers a glimpse of the near future for the cloud market.