Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be on everyone’s mind. It powers natural language recognition within voice-powered assistants like Siri and Alexa, beats world-class Go players (Google AlphaGo), and enables hyper-targeted e-commerce and content recommendations across the web, as we see with Amazon and Netflix.
But recently, AI has begun actively expanding its footprint within the enterprise. Executives are trying to more fully comprehend what AI is and how they can use it to better capitalize on business opportunities by gaining insights into their data and engaging with customers more productively, thereby honing a competitive edge.
AI is the frontier of enterprise technology, but many misperceptions remain about what it is and how it works. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that AI is an umbrella term that covers a range of technologies — including machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, deep learning, and others — that are in various stages of development and deployment.
The use of AI for dynamic market-based pricing and targeted marketing has been spreading through corporations for a while, but actual AI computing where machines think like humans is still years in the future. The various possibilities prompt a range of reactions from people who understand AI’s disruptive potential.
So, is enterprise AI just an over-exposed and under-delivering concept about to fall off a cliff and into Gartner’s Hype Cycle Trough of Disillusionment? Or is it the holy grail of business innovation that will leave companies without it in the dust of tech transformation?
In an attempt to answer these questions, we commissioned a survey of over 650 IT decision makers at large enterprises working across industries in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and France, ranging from directors to C-level executives, to gauge their pulse. We asked a host of questions to find out if and how enterprises are using AI, what their future plans are, and what they think the impact of AI will really be on their organization, among other things.
Here are five key findings:
- For Security Teams, AI Is Moving the Needle: The survey found that 77% say they have prevented more breaches following their use of AI-powered tools, and 81% say AI was detecting threats before their security teams could.
- Organizations Are Already Investing in AI, and This Will Only Increase: Nearly all of the IT decision makers surveyed said they are either currently spending on AI-powered solutions, or planning to invest in them in the next two years. 60% already have AI in place.
- AI Is Seen Has a Competitive Advantage: 87% of IT decision makers see AI-powered technology as a competitive advantage for their IT departments, and 83% are investing specifically in AI to beat competitors.
- AI Is Living Up to Its Promises: Despite the fact that 76% of respondents are concerned that marketing hype will make it difficult to vet AI-powered tech, 86% say the AI they’ve used has lived up to its promises. Furthermore, 64% of IT decision makers expect to see ROI from their investments in AI in fewer than two years.
- Concerns Linger, but AI Opportunities Abound: 68% of IT decision makers say AI will make certain jobs obsolete, and 74% are concerned AI technology will replace human jobs. But, 93% say it will create new job opportunities, and 80% believe AI will lead them to hire new workers and retrain existing employees.
Ready to see more of the results? DOWNLOAD THE INFOGRAPHIC HERE for a quick visual summary of the report highlights and the summary report for a more detailed look into the survey findings, and you can DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT HERE.