Smarter use of artificial intelligence tools could hold the key to more successful data migrations.
That’s one of the key findings of the 2025 Data Migration report from AI intelligence company Caylent, an Amazon Web Services premium tier partner.
The survey polled more than 300 leaders across a number of industries – including education, financial services, leisure, health care, manufacturing and utilities – and uncovered some concerning results.
Among these were the fact that only 6% of respondents said their organizations completed their most challenging migrations on time, with just 6% reporting zero downtime during the migration process. The most challenging migrations were found to be on-premises to cloud, database version upgrades and cross-cloud migration.
Nearly half of all respondents (46%) suffered more than five hours of downtime during challenging migrations, which led to customer experience issues, lost revenues and operational slowdowns.
Respondents also revealed that the top three time-intensive tasks in challenging migrations were moving data from the source to target database, testing the target database (including all integrations), and converting the database schemas for the target platform.
While the need for a more efficient database modernization strategy appears obvious – and the use of AI clearly helps, with 77% of respondents describing it as “effective or highly effective” – more expertise is required for its successful implementation.
This was backed up by the survey, which showed that although 60% of respondents leveraged GenAI or data movement automation tools for their most difficult migration projects, more than half – 53% – lack clarity on which AI features and tools would best serve their needs.
“The survey confirms what we see every day – modernization is imperative, but too often organizations are slowed by accumulated tech debt and outdated approaches that create unnecessary downtime and delayed returns,” said Lori Williams, Caylen’s CEO.
“At Caylent, we combine generative AI with deep engineering expertise to lower the barrier of entry for even the most complex projects and accelerate the time to savings. That means faster migrations, reduced legacy costs and a stronger foundation for growth in a market defined by constant change.”
Caylent’s survey is available to download on its website.