A new survey from TraceGains suggests the food and beverage sector is moving towards artificial intelligence with caution, even as employees increasingly turn to public tools outside formal company oversight.
The Westminster, Colorado-based compliance and innovation software provider said its 2026 AI Readiness & Governance Survey found that only 41% of food and beverage organisations have formal enterprise AI initiatives in place. That figure sits alongside signs of broader...
Continue Reading This Article
Enjoy this article as well as all of our content, including reports, news, tips and more.
By registering or signing into your SRM Today account, you agree to SRM Today's Terms of Use and consent to the processing of your personal information as described in our Privacy Policy.
, less visible use across the workforce, creating what TraceGains described as a widening divide between governed adoption and informal experimentation.
The survey polled 423 professionals working in quality, food safety, regulatory affairs, research and development, supply chain, executive leadership and business systems across the world on 27 May 2026. TraceGains said the results point to a sector that recognises the potential of AI but remains uneasy about intellectual property, compliance, data protection and model accuracy.
John Thorpe, senior director of product management at TraceGains, said the industry was at a critical point in its use of AI. He added that while brands understand the opportunity, some employees are already moving faster than their organisations’ official policies, increasing the risk of so-called shadow AI usage.
The survey found that 59% of respondents said their organisations did not yet have enterprise-level AI technologies in place for compliance and new product development workflows. That lack of formal deployment contrasts with other workforce research cited by TraceGains, including Gartner’s 2025 Cybersecurity Innovations in AI Risk Management and Use Survey, which found more than 57% of employees were using personal generative AI accounts for work and 33% were entering sensitive information into public or unapproved tools.
For a highly regulated industry, those habits can create obvious problems. TraceGains said the most common barriers to wider adoption were concerns over AI accuracy and trustworthiness, cited by 30% of respondents, followed by enterprise security and data protection requirements at 25% and regulatory safeguards at 24%. Only 15% said they were chiefly motivated by AI’s potential to improve decision-making.
The findings fit a broader pattern seen across the sector this year. Industry coverage from FoodNavigator and other trade publications has shown that food and beverage companies are exploring AI for product development, supply chain planning, quality control and compliance, but are typically doing so in gradual stages and with strong oversight. A March outlook report cited by Food Industry Executive said manufacturers were prioritising optimisation and regulatory discipline over rapid expansion, while stressing that digital maturity remains a prerequisite for successful deployment.
TraceGains also argued that the sector’s AI hesitation is rooted in deeper structural problems. Forty per cent of respondents identified disconnected systems and data as the biggest obstacle to faster progress, and only 9% said their organisations were fully connected across teams and functions. At the same time, 34% said end-to-end traceability would define the next phase of operations, while 32% pointed to real-time connected data as the next major priority.
That emphasis on connected infrastructure reflects a wider industry view that AI can only be as reliable as the data feeding it. Recent sector analysis has highlighted applications ranging from predictive maintenance and automated quality checks to real-time logistics and digital twins, but it has also stressed the need for transparency, governance and human oversight if those tools are to be used responsibly.
Thorpe said that organisations cannot expect to get the full value from intelligent automation while information remains trapped in silos. In his view, connected and well-governed data will be the foundation for credible AI adoption in food and beverage.
TraceGains, which says it works with more than 1,500 global clients, framed the survey as evidence that the sector is not rejecting AI but trying to reconcile speed with control. For an industry built around safety, traceability and compliance, that balance may prove more important than the technology itself.
Source: Noah Wire Services
