Companies Going ‘All In’ on AI, Appen Study Says Posted on : Jun 17 - 2021

AI budgets are up significantly over the past year as companies compete to survive and grow market share during the global pandemic, according to Appen, which published its State of AI and Machine Learning report this week. The study also detected a correlation between AI budget size and the likelihood that AI projects will actually be deployed on the one hand, and budgets and the use of external data providers on the other.

Now in its seventh year, Appen’s State of AI seeks to generate a broad snapshot of AI investments across the United States. The company contracted with Harris Poll to investigate various aspects of AI investments and project management at 500 companies, all of which had at least 100 employees.

The growth in AI budgets was perhaps the most compelling result to come out of the study, which had a margin of error of ± 5%. According to the study, the number of companies with budgets ranging from $500k to $5 million increased by 55% compared to last year. What’s more, Appen found that only 26% of survey respondents reported having an AI budget of less than $500,000, down significantly from last year, when 40% of survey respondents indicated that level of spending.

This points to a significant uptick in spending on AI, says Appen CEO Mark Brayan, who said the results “clearly indicate that companies are going all-in on AI.”

“When we first set out to understand the state of AI and machine learning seven years ago, organizations globally were eager to start AI projects but weren’t making meaningful progress,” Brayan stated in a press release. View More