More than eight in 10 business executives say their companies have implemented artificial intelligence to improve revenue, according to a new global survey, but a report from Tata Consultancy Services also found that even among industry pioneers, only one-third have actually completed an AI project.
As the AI boom enters its second year around the world, research continues to show that businesses are keen to demonstrate that they are prioritizing the technology, with half of UK businesses claiming to be piloting AI use cases and consultancies in particular recently outlining AI tools as a key form of investment.
In line with this, a new study by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) polled respondents across 24 countries and 12 industry sectors on the impact of AI on the future of their business. And among the researchers' key findings, TCS revealed that 86% of senior business leaders have already adopted AI to enhance existing or create new revenue streams.
Source: TATA Consultancy Services
Executives are generally positive about AI's impact, with 57% saying they are excited or optimistic about AI's potential impact on their business. Given slowing economic growth, executives' instinct may have been to use the technology more conservatively to find cost-saving measures, but they often believe they can aim higher than that. To that end, TCS also found that 69% are focused on using AI to drive innovation and increase revenue, rather than productivity gains or cost optimization.
“2023 has been an exciting year with businesses across the board experimenting with AI/GenAI use cases. We are now entering an era of broad and deep adoption of AI by enterprises,” said Khaliq Vin, chief technology officer, TCS.
Even the majority of companies adopting AI don't see it as a mere replacement for the human workforce: 65% of respondents say human strategic decision-making, intuition, and creativity will remain core to their company's competitive advantage. Instead, they expect the technology to make employees more productive and more creative. That's why 45% of survey respondents expect that within three years, half of their workforce will need to use AI-generated capabilities to do their jobs, and an additional 41% believe more employees will use AI-generated capabilities.
Source: TATA Consultancy Services
But Vinh added that, like many digital transformation efforts over the past decade, companies are finding that the path to putting AI solutions to work won't be easy. He noted that the survey confirmed that companies feel “inadequately prepared to adopt AI solutions at scale, and also ill-prepared to manage the significant changes that will come with it in people's roles and the way they work.”
This may be why the majority of companies are not able to implement the AI projects they hoped for: Currently, the average completion rate of AI projects across all functions and departments in companies is 26%, with only 30% among absolute market leaders.
This isn't the first time that leaders have been found to struggle to walk the talk when it comes to AI: Despite the technology's potential benefits to the financial services industry, a Kin + Carta poll also found that only 14% of industry leaders have integrated AI into their company strategy.
