AI Spending Planned For 2018 But Talent And Security Obstacles Challenge IT Posted on : Mar 07 - 2018

Artificial Intelligence (AI) surrounds us. It helps us find the best route to our next destination and tells us when to leave. It filters spam from our email inboxes, and it helps protect us from fraud. Yet, the industry talks about AI as if were a new thing. Why? AI continues to evolve from existing machine learning algorithms and solutions toward more advanced neural networks that mimic aspects of how the human mind works.

These advances in AI promise solutions that are better at image, speech and pattern recognition. AI presents an opportunity for business leaders to get better analytical outcomes from existing data through various advanced algorithmic models. The ability of AI to automate and eliminate the repetitive tasks within a person's job, as well as provide actionable data insight to workers across a range of roles, promises vast employee productivity gains.

To understand the state of AI in organizations, Lopez Research teamed with Pulse.qa to ask 122 CIOs and CTOs for their viewpoints on AI. While there's been a great deal of hype around AI technology, companies are ready to jump in. Over 70 percent of the IT leaders responded yes to the question "Is your organization intending to invest in AI projects in 2018?"  Corporations enthusiasm for AI stems from early successes at pioneering organizations. Over half of the companies surveyed answered yes to the question "Have your artificial intelligence/machine learning projects impacted your revenue or cost by 3% or more?" With certain industries living on thin margins or declining revenue curve, such as retail and energy, a 3 percent swing equates to serious savings and/or revenue increases.

However, just because IT has given the green light to invest in AI, it doesn't mean deployments are without challenges.  Unsurprisingly, when asked "What are the biggest obstacles in doing AI projects?", lack of talent ranked number one at 28 percent. It’s difficult for companies to kickstart and grow machine learning or other artificial intelligence efforts with a limited pool of data scientists. What’s slightly more surprising was that security ranked number two at nearly 22 percent, which was quite higher than infrastructure concerns.  Given that security has become a board level discussion at most organizations, it's nice to see technology leaders addressing potential issues at the design phase of new solutions.

For those that haven't adopted machine learning and artificial intelligence tools, there are plenty of ways to test the waters. Large established technology vendors (such as Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft) are offering various types of machine learning services in the cloud. Companies can choose to embed specific features, such as text analysis, into applications using APIs or purchase a set of solutions geared more towards data scientists. Whether we call it machine learning, deep learning or artificial intelligence, it's clear that companies see opportunity in today's advanced analytics solutions. Source