{"id":26956,"date":"2026-03-12T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T06:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smecyberinsights.co.uk\/?p=26956"},"modified":"2026-03-16T10:47:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:47:23","slug":"ai-spend-is-surging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smecyberinsights.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/12\/ai-spend-is-surging\/","title":{"rendered":"AI spend is surging, but ROI is patchy; what the Wasabi Cloud Storage Index means for UK SMEs"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Gibraltar:\u00a0 Thursday, 12 March 2026 \u2013 07:00 CET<\/p>\n

AI spend is surging, but ROI is patchy; what the Wasabi Cloud Storage Index means for UK SMEs
\n<\/strong>By: Iain Fraser<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Cybersecurity Journalist
\n<\/a>Published in Collaboration with SECURUS Communications<\/a>
\nGoogle Indexed on: 120326 at 08:52 CET<\/a>
\nSMECyberInsights.co.uk<\/a> | First for SME Cybersecurity News
\n<\/a>#SMECyberInsights #SMECybersecurity #SMECyberInsights #SME #CyberSafe #CyberSecurity #Cybersecurity #Cloud #CloudStorage<\/em><\/p>\n

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AI spend is surging, but ROI is patchy; what the Wasabi Cloud Storage Index means for UK SMEs<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here is what matters in this year\u2019s Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index; AI projects are racing ahead of value realisation, while storage economics still trip up governance, budgeting, and cyber resilience for small firms. The good news is that SMEs can respond with a few disciplined moves that reduce cost, risk, and disappointment at the same time.<\/p>\n

Why this matters now; AI ambition meets SME reality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wasabi\u2019s 2026 findings land at a moment when many UK small businesses feel pressured to \u201cdo AI\u201d quickly. However, the report\u2019s headline is a caution sign, not a brake. Wasabi states: \u201c32% of respondents say their AI projects are delivering a positive return today.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In practice, that means two-thirds of organisations are still paying for experimentation, integration, and data readiness. For SMEs, that can collide with immediate needs such as ransomware prevention, phishing protection, and meeting UK GDPR security measures. Storage is also not a passive cost. It underpins backups, incident response evidence, and day-to-day collaboration.<\/p>\n

What the report is really saying; clear definitions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two terms are worth demystifying.<\/p>\n

ROI (Return on Investment)<\/strong><\/p>\n

ROI<\/strong> is the measurable value you get back compared with what you spent. For AI, \u201cspend\u201d includes licences, cloud compute, storage, data engineering time, and security controls. \u201cReturn\u201d should be defined upfront, such as fewer hours on admin, faster quotes, lower fraud losses, or improved customer retention.<\/p>\n

Storage fees versus storage spend<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wasabi also highlights a persistent pattern across industries; organisations often pay roughly the same again in cloud fees as the raw storage they think they are buying. The plain English takeaway is that egress, API calls, replication, minimum retention, and retrieval performance tiers<\/strong> can quietly double the bill.<\/p>\n

As a result, AI workloads can look affordable in a pilot, then become expensive when they scale and start moving data around.<\/p>\n

The SME cyber angle; data sprawl increases attack surface<\/strong><\/p>\n

AI projects tend to copy data into new places; data lakes, vector databases, SaaS tools, and analyst sandboxes. That expands your attack surface<\/strong>, meaning the number of systems and pathways an attacker can exploit.<\/p>\n

For sme cybersecurity and compliance for SMEs, this matters because:<\/p>\n

* More copies of data increase the impact of a breach.
\n* Poorly controlled storage can weaken ransomware recovery if backups share credentials or are reachable from compromised accounts.
*Logging and access control often lag behind speed of deployment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Actionable guidance; five steps UK SMEs can implement this month<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are practical risk mitigation tips that improve both cost control and cyber resilience.<\/p>\n

1. Define \u201cpositive ROI\u201d in one sentence per use case<\/strong>; tie it to a business KPI and a date. If it cannot be measured, it is a research project.<\/p>\n

2. Classify data before you feed it to AI<\/strong>; customer personal data, HR files, and contracts need stricter handling under UK GDPR security expectations.\u00a04<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Tag and track storage costs by project<\/strong>; require every bucket and dataset to have an owner, retention period, and budget code.<\/p>\n

4. Design for ransomware recovery<\/strong>; use immutable or logically air-gapped backups where possible, and test restores quarterly.<\/p>\n

5. Control access tightly<\/strong>; use MFA, least privilege, and separate admin accounts for storage and AI tooling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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SECURUS Communications Ltd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Securus<\/a> <\/strong>is a managed communications Operator, providing next-generation network infrastructure and value added services to Managed Hosting providers and the ‘cloud generation’\u200b of enterprises. Securus<\/a> <\/strong>priority is to offer communication services that represent excellent value for money and are backed by exceptional levels of support.<\/p>\n

Contact Securus<\/strong>
\nSecurus Communications Ltd
\nStation Road, Landmark house, Hook, England RG27 9HA, GB
\nT: Enquiries:\u00a003451 283457<\/span><\/a>\u00a0| Service Desk: 03451 283458<\/a>
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