Most Enterprises Invest in AI, but See Challenges

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize enterprises by increasing revenue, enhancing efficiency and providing a better experience for customers. But business leaders see serious challenges to implementation and return on investment (ROI). A Teradata study entitled "State of Artificial Intelligence for Enterprises" shows that four out of five enterprises have AI implementations in place, and one out of three believe they will need to invest more in AI over the next 36 months to keep pace with the competition. The industries that most anticipate positive impacts from AI are: IT, technology and telecom; business and professional services; consumer services; financial services; and manufacturing and production. The biggest potential might be in automating repetitive tasks, delivering new strategic insights and automating areas of knowledge work. But those benefits won't come easy. Virtually all the participants in the survey anticipate major hurdles, including inadeqate infrastructure, talent and budget. Perhaps surprisingly, only one in five worries about the impact of AI and automation on jobs and employee morale. Most believe the future of AI will be so significant for creating a strategy across business practices that they plan to install a chief AI officer (CAIO) to coordinate and mandate implementation throughout the enterprise. They also intend to work with vendors that will help them buy, build and deploy AI solutions. The Teradata study was conducted by Vanson Bourne, which surveyed 260 IT and business decision-makers at a vice president or higher level from organizations in the Americas, Europe and the Asia/Pacific arena with a global revenue of more than $50 million a year.