Why data literacy is essential - and elusive - for business leaders in the AI age

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Fewer than half of business leaders say their data strategies -- how data is collected, managed, stored, and accessed -- are completely aligned with their business priorities. 

That's according to a 2025 Salesforce survey of more than 550 US senior business leaders of companies with at least 500 employees across multiple industries. The number is down 14% from 2023. 

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The rising importance of data-driven decision-making is clear but elusive. However, the trust in the data underpinning these decisions is falling. Business leaders do not feel equipped to find, analyze, and interpret the data they need in an increasingly competitive business environment. 

The added complexity is the convergence of macro and micro uncertainties -- including economic, political, financial, technological, competitive landscape, and talent shortage variables. All told, these are placing enormous pressure on business leaders to have immediate access to the most relevant data needed to make smarter, faster, and more impactful decisions.  

Here are key findings from the survey of business leaders:  

• According to the research, 72% of business leaders believe their careers depend on how data-driven they are; that is, they rely on facts, metrics, and analytics to guide their strategies. However, some leaders (86%) go a step further, noting that their careers are dependent on how data-literate they are. 
• Despite this, more than half (54%) of business leaders are not confident in their ability to find, analyze, and interpret data on their own. 
• This lack of confidence is particularly prevalent among self-described "right-brained" business leaders -- those who gravitate toward creativity and relationship building. Right-brained leaders represent nearly half (47%) of respondents and are most commonly in marketing (59%), human resources (58%), and sales (56%)

Business leaders are losing confidence in their data

Business leaders are expected to have data supporting their decisions and investment theses; in fact, 66% of business leaders feel more pressure to be data-driven, and nearly 6 out of 10 business leaders are competing with their colleagues using data to support their programs.

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The business need for greater adoption of AI capabilities, including predictive, generative and agentic AI solutions, is increasing the need for businesses to have confidence and trust in their data. Survey results show that higher adoption of AI will require stronger data literacy and access to trustworthy data.  

Even though the role of data is more important than ever for business leaders, confidence levels have declined in the past two years -- confidence in data's relevance to business objectives is down 18%, and confidence in its accuracy is down 27% compared to survey results from 2023.

Data literacy is now table stakes, and 'non-data people' are at risk  

The survey found that 72% of business leaders feel their career trajectories depend on how data-driven they are; that is, their ability to use facts, metrics, and data to drive decisions. According to research by Deloitte Digital and MuleSoft, 93% of IT leaders will implement AI agents in the next two years. 

And the biggest obstacle to the adoption of agentic AI? Data is trapped across siloed enterprise apps. The average number of apps respondents use is 897, with 45% reporting using 1,000 applications or more -- further hindering IT teams' ability to build a unified experience. Only 29% of enterprise apps are integrated and share information across the business. 

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This is not just about trapped data, or trapped value to customers. This is about trapped opportunities for career growth. The survey found that 86% of leaders said their careers are reliant on how data-literate they are -- their ability to use methods and tools to extract insights from data. This drive for data literacy is especially felt among those in sales (90%) and marketing (89%).

The alarming part of the survey is that 54% of business leaders are not confident in their ability to find, analyze, and interpret data on their own. And fewer than half of business leaders are sure they can use data to drive action and decision-making, generate and deliver timely insights, or effectively use data in their day-to-day work. Data literacy and confidence in the data are two growth opportunities for business leaders across all lines of business. CIO research from MuleSoft explains the reasons why: 

• Adoption of autonomous agents is a key business priority: Introducing autonomous agents within the next two years is on the roadmap for 93% of IT leaders; nearly half have already done so.
• Productivity gains drive agent adoption: The vast majority (93%) feel that AI will increase developer productivity over the next three years, which is up 7% since last year's report.
• More AI models will be deployed to drive agent adoption: The average number of AI models estimated to be used doubled from 2024 (9 to 18), and IT leaders predict a further increase of 78% in the next three years to an average of 32 models.
• IT budgets are growing in 2025: As demand for AI grows, so does the budget: 85% of IT decision-makers expect an increase in their overall budget in 2025, while 11% anticipate that their IT budgets will stay the same.
• Investments in data infrastructure are four times AI investments: To prepare for the expanded use of AI, enterprise CIOs are allocating 20% of their budgets to data infrastructure and management (compared to 5% to AI).

Agentic AI and its ability for businesses to develop a hybrid workforce -- human labor and digital labor -- is the top CEO priority. Successful implementation of AI solutions require businesses to adopt a data-driven culture, where data literacy and confidence in said data is championed, celebrated and continuously improving over time. 

Scaling data-driven decisions using AI agent workflows

Scaling data-driven decision-making requires one key capability -- data in the flow of work. The survey found that 90% of business leaders say that direct access to the data they need within the programs and apps they work in the most would help them perform better; 86% say they'd use data more often if this were the case. 

We can no longer allow for data silos to exist. We must be able to sense, understand, decide, and take action in the flow of work, using trusted data that is accessible to us while we use our tools. The user interfaces (UI) must also be more conversational, allowing our team members to have conversations with their data -- 85% of business leaders think they'd be better at their job if they could ask their data questions with natural language as they use with colleagues. One of the superpowers of multi-modal (text, voice, video, photos) AI agents is the ability to reason and have conversations with users via input and output system prompts. 

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The promise of AI and data is its ability to scale positive business outcomes. Business leaders must invest in and develop integration strategies, knowing that AI cannot function at its best without access to critical and trusted business data. Business leaders must also invest in employee training, deliberately focusing on improving data literacy for all stakeholders. 

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