Seagate Report Finds 62% of Organizations Unprepared for AI Storage Demands
A Seagate report finds 99% of IT leaders expect AI to increase storage needs, but only 38% say their infrastructure is ready, with energy and sustainability concerns delaying expansion.
The 2026 Data Infrastructure Readiness Report is based on a survey of 2,712 enterprise technology decision-makers across the U.S., China, India, the U.K., Germany, France and Japan. Recon Analytics conducted the research on behalf of Seagate in May and June 2026. The survey examined respondents' views on AI readiness, infrastructure investment, storage architecture, infrastructure efficiency, sustainability and long-term planning.
Seagate's data shows that 32% of respondents expect their storage demand to grow by more than 50% because of AI. The findings point to a gap between the pace of enterprise AI adoption and the storage infrastructure needed to support it. The AI conversation has long centered on computing power, but organizations are increasingly confronting how AI-sourced data is accessed, stored, retained and managed.
The most commonly reported challenge to deploying AI is data quality and readiness, cited by 53% of respondents. Storage infrastructure follows at 43%. Both obstacles were reported at significantly higher rates than compute availability, cited by 27%, and energy constraints, cited by 24%.
The pressure comes as some businesses begin to see measurable returns from AI. Seagate's report says 86% of organizations are seeing moderate or significant returns on their AI investments, and one-third report significant measurable returns. Nearly every respondent, 98%, agreed that AI is transforming storage from a basic component into a strategic element of business infrastructure.
Investment in data centers is also rising on priority lists. Just over three out of four organizations, 76%, ranked data centers among their top three infrastructure investment priorities, and one out of five identified data centers as their single highest priority. The data center debate has drawn attention as fights against data centers have appeared around the country.
Respondents also identified immature AI strategies, limited budgets and resources, and data management and governance challenges as significant barriers to preparedness.
Sustainability and energy are shaping how organizations plan and expand AI infrastructure. Seventy-seven percent of surveyed organizations said they had delayed or restructured AI infrastructure expansion because of sustainability or energy concerns, and 36% said they had significantly revised expansion plans. AI-associated energy consumption was the top environmental concern, cited by 52% of respondents, followed by carbon emissions and energy use at 51%. Ninety-seven percent agreed that extending the usable lifecycle of infrastructure can improve sustainability, and 94% anticipated their storage operations would become more sustainable within the next five years.
Seagate describes the need for continued investment in data strategy, governance and AI infrastructure as "sustainable scaling." The company defines it as "the ability to increase AI capacity and business value while continuously improving the efficiencies of the infrastructure that supports it."