ARMONK, N.Y., May 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New market research
commissioned by IBM (NYSE: IBM) revealed that global AI adoption
grew steadily over the last year, to 35 percent of those surveyed
in 2022, further underscoring that AI growth is poised to
accelerate as it continues to mature, becoming more accessible and
easier to implement.
Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release
here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/9002053-ibm-global-ai-adoption-index-2022/
Other data points from the "Global AI Adoption Index 2022,"
conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM, reveal this growth
was due to companies recognizing the value of AI as they emerged
from the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and invested in their
digital transformation, while dealing with talent and skills
shortages. In fact, the study shows that AI adoption was up 4
percentage points compared with 2021.
For the first time, the report also polled companies about their
plans to use AI in their sustainability initiatives and found that
AI is poised to play a significant role. 66% of IT professionals
surveyed said that their company is either currently applying AI,
or plans to apply AI, to accelerate ESG initiatives.
Highlights from the "Global AI Adoption Index 2022" include:
- Global AI adoption is growing steadily, and most companies
already use or plan to use AI: Today, 35% of companies reported
using AI in their business. Compared with 2021, organizations are
13% more likely to have adopted AI in 2022. Additionally, 42% of
companies report they are exploring AI. Large companies are more
likely than smaller companies to use AI. Chinese and Indian
companies are leading the way, with nearly 60% of IT professionals
in those countries saying their organization already actively uses
AI, compared with lagging markets like South Korea (22%), Australia (24%) the U.S. (25%), and the U.K.
(26%). IT professionals in the financial services, media, energy,
automotive, oil, and aerospace industries are most likely to report
their company has actively deployed AI, while organizations in
industries including retail, travel and government/federal services
and healthcare are the least likely.
- Setting clear data and AI strategies are key for horizontal
deployment: A major explanation for gradual AI adoption is the
need to implement a successful data management strategy and
applying AI to that data achieve business goals. Companies that
have not deployed AI are three times as likely to say that they
have little to no confidence their company has the proper data
management tools. Today, 37% of companies are developing an AI
strategy, 28% already have a holistic strategy in place, and 25%
have a strategy that is focused only on limited or specific use
cases.
- Automation is helping address skills gaps, labor
shortages: More than costs, lack of tools, or project or data
complexity, the skills gap remains the biggest barrier to AI
adoption. At the same time, AI is also helping organizations
address skills shortages, for example by automating tasks for
skilled workers so they can be more productive, or by using
AI-assisted learning or employee engagement. Almost one-in-four
companies are adopting AI because of labor or skills shortages, and
30% of global IT professionals say employees at their organization
are already saving time with new AI and automation
software/tools.
- A growing emphasis on trust – but few concrete actions:
Establishing trustworthy, responsible AI practices and AI
maturity go hand-in-hand: The more likely a company is to have
deployed AI, the more likely they are to value the importance of
trustworthiness. IT professionals at businesses currently deploying
AI are 17% more likely to report that their business values AI
explainability than those that are simply exploring AI. But while
growing majorities of business leaders say that trustworthy AI is
critical, a majority organizations have not taken key steps to
ensure their AI is trustworthy and responsible, such as reducing
bias (74%), tracking performance variations/model drift (68%), and
making sure making sure they can explain AI-powered decisions
(61%)
- Building more sustainable operations: AI is poised to
play a growing role in the sustainability initiatives of
organizations around the world as more than two-thirds of
businesses either use or plan to use AI today as part of their
sustainability initiatives. One-in-five companies are already
adopting AI because of environmental pressures.
- Popular use cases like automation, security drive
adoption: Organizations are applying AI in a wide variety of
use cases today, with the most advanced adoption happening in areas
like IT operations, security and threat detection and business
process automation. Today, already a third of companies are already
using AI for IT Operations (AIOps) to automate key processes, which
helps them maintain application performance while also making
resource-allocation more efficient. A third of companies deploying
AI are applying such as natural language processing to fields like
marketing, sales and customer care.
"More than one-third of organizations polled in the IBM Global
AI Adoption Index 2022 say they are using AI today to respond to a
myriad of different factors and pressures," said Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President, IBM
Software. "They're looking to AI to help them address skills and
labor shortages, respond to competitive pressures and, increasingly
to respond to environmental pressures as well. Most respondents
said they either are already using or plan to use AI as part of
their sustainability initiatives. These trends all point to the
growing role that AI is playing both within organizations but also
in society."
While AI investment continues to grow, barriers to adoption
remain, particularly for smaller organizations who are
significantly less likely to take advantage of AI. The survey
determined top three barriers to AI adoption for businesses
are: limited AI expertise or knowledge (34%), high prices
(29%), and lack of tools and platforms for developing AI
models (25%).
IBM is helping to address these barriers and deliver the
benefits of AI to more people and organizations across industries
with AI that is human-centered and designed for the needs of
businesses. IBM is continually drawing on the latest innovations in
AI from IBM Research to deliver new enterprise-ready capabilities,
automate technical and manual processes like IT operations and
develop new ways to operationalize and help ensure AI ethics are
observed. Additionally, IBM Consulting brings deep technology,
industry and process design expertise to co-create solutions with
customers that embed AI into core business processes and create
intelligent workflows at scale.
Download the full report here.
Methodology
This poll was conducted from March
30-April 12, 2022, among a sample of 7,502 senior business
decision-makers with some knowledge/influence over their company's
IT decisions, including 500 respondents each in the US, UK,
France, Germany, Spain, Italy,
China, India, Singapore, Australia, Canada, UAE, and South Korea, and 1000 respondents in across
the Latin America region
(Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru).
The interviews were conducted online and the margin of error for
the full sample in each country is +/- 4 percentage points, and the
margin of error for the Latin
America region is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95%
confidence level. See full details on the methodology at the end of
the summary.
About IBM Watson
Watson is IBM's AI technology
for business, helping organizations to better predict and shape
future outcomes, automate complex processes, and optimize
employees' time. Watson has
evolved from an IBM Research project, to experimentation, to a
scaled, open set of products that run anywhere. With more than
40,000 client engagements, Watson
is being applied by leading global brands across a variety of
industries to transform how people work. To learn more, visit:
https://www.ibm.com/watson
Media Contact:
Zachery
Bishop
IBM Media Relations
Zachery.bishop@ibm.com
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