From AI Adoption to Real Outcomes: New Sisense Research Reveals How Product Leaders Are Closing the Gap

Despite growing trust in AI, product teams still struggle to operationalize insights, delaying innovation and decision-making

NEW YORK– BUSINESS WIRE – Sisense, the leader in AI-powered embedded analytics platforms, today released its 2026 State of Analytics report, revealing a widening gap between AI ambition and real-world results. Conducted in partnership with UserEvidence, the study surveyed 267 product leaders and found that while organizations are rapidly adopting AI-driven analytics, many still struggle to operationalize insights within their products and workflows.

The findings highlight a critical inflection point for analytics: while nearly half (48%) of product leaders say they trust AI-generated insights, teams still spend an average of 40% of their time validating those insights, slowing decision-making and limiting business impact.

Despite increased adoption of analytics and AI tools, core challenges persist. Accessibility remains a major barrier, with 69% of respondents reporting that analytics are not easily accessible across their organization, and 65% admitting they’ve made business decisions without consulting available data due to access challenges.

Integration complexity also continues to stall progress. On average, product teams have delayed or abandoned two product innovations due to analytics integration issues, while nearly a third (29%) of AI initiatives remain stuck in pilot and fail to reach full production.

Key Findings: AI Adoption Outpaces Execution

AI Trust Requires Human Oversight
While trust in AI is growing, it remains conditional. Nearly half of respondents trust AI-generated insights, yet analytics teams spend significant time validating outputs. This highlights ongoing concerns around accuracy, reliability, and data quality.

Accessibility Challenges Persist
Even as organizations consolidate tools and reduce surface-level friction, access to insights remains limited. Most analytics still require specialist intervention, preventing teams from fully realizing the value of their data.

Integration Bottlenecks Delay Innovation
Integration challenges remain the top barrier to operationalizing analytics and AI. These issues not only slow time-to-market but also limit organizations’ ability to deliver differentiated, data-driven product experiences.

AI Initiatives Stall Before Scaling
Although adoption is high, execution lags. Nearly one-third of AI initiatives remain in pilot stages, reflecting gaps in integration, expertise, and organizational readiness.

The Future: Embedded, Operational Analytics within Applications

The research points to a clear shift in how analytics will be delivered and consumed. Product leaders increasingly expect analytics to move beyond standalone dashboards and into the products, workflows, and AI interfaces where decisions are made.

In fact, 43% of respondents expect analytics to be embedded directly into business applications, while an additional 24% anticipate conversational interfaces becoming a primary access point for insights.

This shift reflects a broader realization: AI alone is not enough. To deliver real impact, analytics must be accessible, trusted, and seamlessly integrated into the flow of work.

“Organizations have made significant progress in adopting AI, but adoption alone doesn’t drive value,” said Andrew Loomis, VP Customer Success at Sisense. “The real challenge, and opportunity, is operationalizing those insights inside the products and workflows where decisions happen. That’s where embedded, AI-powered analytics becomes essential.”

Read the Sisense 2026 State of Analytics report.

Methodology

The survey was conducted in partnership with UserEvidence and included 267 product leaders across industries. All respondents worked at organizations with at least 100 employees, with nearly half representing companies with over 1,000 employees. The research was conducted in February 2026 and reflects a global sample across North America, EMEA, and LATAM.

About Sisense

Sisense is the leading AI-first embedded analytics platform that democratizes data access, empowering developers, app builders, and business users to embed actionable insights into their products and workflows. With a complete suite of no-, low-, and pro-code tools, Sisense simplifies data preparation, uncovers deep insights, and seamlessly embeds analytics into applications, catering to both technical and non-technical users. The flexible analytics platform enables customers like Seismic, Barrios, and Tessitura to infuse actionable insights into their customer experiences. Founded in Israel in 2004, Sisense maintains ISO 27701 privacy, ISO/IEC 42001 AI governance, and ISO 27001 information security management certifications. For more information, visit www.sisense.com.

About UserEvidence

UserEvidence is a software company and independent research partner that helps B2B technology companies produce original research content from practitioners in their industry. All research completed by UserEvidence is verified and authentic according to their research principles: identity verification, significance and representation, quality and independence, and transparency. All UserEvidence research is based on real user feedback without interference, bias, or spin from clients.