Brexit has caused UK businesses to fall behind in their digital transformation strategies.

According to a Pure Storage survey, 76 percent of UK businesses say that Brexit has disrupted their ability to plan and invest in technology innovation.

UK businesses still remain stuck in what Pure Storage calls a “technology investment limbo” as the forthcoming Brexit and GDPR leaves many confused as to how to proceed when investing to boost innovation.

However, when emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning are deployed in businesses, there is a significant change in the way they operate.

AI in particular, is recognised as one of the biggest opportunities for businesses to accelerate in the fast-changing economy and those automating new process are more likely to notice gains, according to PwC research.

Read more:AI Could Boost UK GDP by 10% by 2030 – report

James Petter, VP of EMEA, Pure Storage said: “UK businesses are clearly motivated to embrace digital, but in their desire to respond to customer demand, innovate quickly and forge new business models, storage and IT resources are being overwhelmed by new data demands.”

For instance, the demand for cloud is one that businesses are continuously embracing. They are keen to increase data intelligence while also simplifying storage and operations to include cloud agility as they await the increase of public cloud.

However, despite the need to rise to meet customer demand, 67 percent of businesses say their organisation has fallen short in their use of public cloud over the past year due to security concerns.

The demand for data is also another area that has shown a significant surge. Almost three-quarters of those surveyed say they have seen more demand for real-time analytics and interactive simulations than in 2016.

Petter said: “In today’s cloud era being data-driven is the new normal. Organisations need a data platform that enables them to capitalise on new insights from data simply, in real-time, across multiple cloud-environments.

“There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ and choice and flexibility is key to successful digital transformation-not only for individual businesses, but the UK at large.”

The study surveyed over 500 IT leaders across UK businesses.