More than eight in 10 (86%) senior business leaders have already adopted Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance existing or create new revenue streams, according to a new global survey by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global leader in IT services, consulting and business solutions. The TCS AI for Business Global Study, a comprehensive report on the state of AI adoption and its impact on business, also revealed that 69% of businesses are focused on using AI to drive innovation and increase revenue rather than productivity improvement and cost optimization.
Executives are generally positive about the impact of AI, with 57% saying they are excited or optimistic about AI's potential impact on their business. Forty-five percent of survey respondents expect that within three years, up to half of their employees will need to use generative AI capabilities to do their jobs, and an additional 41% believe even more will do so. The majority (65%) believe AI will augment human capabilities, allowing people to focus on higher-value activities that require creativity and strategic thinking.
2023 was an exciting year with every enterprise experimenting with AI/GenAI use cases. We are now in an era of broad and deep enterprise adoption of AI. However, enterprises realize that the path to operationalized AI solutions will not be easy and building an AI mature enterprise is a marathon, not a sprint. Our AI survey supports this perception, revealing that enterprises feel ill-prepared to adopt AI solutions at scale, and also that they feel ill-prepared to manage the significant changes that this will bring in people's roles and the way they work. Dr. Harik Vin, Chief Technology Officer, TCS
Business leaders are less confident about their path to transformation. Only 4% are using AI in a way that will transform their business, and nearly a quarter (24%) have not progressed beyond the initial exploration stage. Current corporate IT infrastructure and customer expectations are among the main barriers to business success. Organizations also recognize they need to go beyond existing metrics to measure the success of their AI implementations, with nearly three-quarters (72%) saying they don't have the right metrics. The survey also highlights the need for companies to take a strategic approach to AI adoption and develop the right performance metrics to measure the technology's impact on their business.
GenAI, when precision-tuned and leveraged responsibly, activates the computational power of data, cloud and AI. Adding human ingenuity, it enables organizations to create a new paradigm for the modern marketplace. As a result, today's businesses deliver new and unprecedented stakeholder and customer value, incrementally through enablement and empowerment efforts, and exponentially as transformation initiatives. Our extensive track record in business disciplines, engineering, consulting, services and solutions enables us to capitalize on this new paradigm and deliver a unique value proposition to all our customers and partners. Sivaraman Ganesan, Head of AI.Cloud Business Unit, TCS
TCS was one of the first organizations in the industry to bring together cloud computing and artificial intelligence capabilities under its AI.Cloud unit to address emerging customer needs. The unit will drive TCS' multi-layered AI architecture and help clients across the value chain define their AI adoption strategy, enablement and ongoing management.
The TCS Thought Leadership Institute surveyed nearly 1,300 CEOs and senior P&L leaders across 12 industries and 24 countries. Nearly half of the companies surveyed had annual revenues of $1 billion to $5 billion, and the other half had revenues of more than $5 billion. Other key findings from the report, which can be accessed at on.tcs.com/2024-global-AI-study, include:
- Executives believe that AI's impact will be greater than that of the internet (54%) and smartphones (59%).
- Corporate functions with the most completed AI projects: Finance/Comptroller (29% completed), Human Resources (28% completed), Marketing (28% completed)
- 65% of senior executives say competitive advantage will still come from humans – through the creativity, intuition and strategic thinking unleashed by the augmentation and assistance of AI.
- 40% of executives say their business will need to make significant changes before they can take full advantage of AI in the future.
- More than half (55%) said they are currently actively making changes to their business or operating models, products or services in light of the potential benefits and risks of AI.
- 81% of executives emphasize the need for global AI standards and regulation
- 93% of executives surveyed in the UK and Ireland said they have AI projects underway to increase revenue. Executives in other regions were similarly enthusiastic: 89% in North America, 88% in Asia Pacific, 83% in Continental Europe and 80% in Latin America.
- Nearly two-thirds of BFSI (64%) and manufacturing (63%) industry executives surveyed are excited or optimistic about the impact of AI on their business.
Since its inception in 1968, TCS has always been at the forefront of adopting new technologies, helping unlock the opportunities behind them and helping clients execute transformational projects to unlock business value faster. Through our TCS Thought Leadership Institute, we have brought new insights on every major technology development and how different industries and personalities (CEOs, CFOs, CIOs etc.) are leveraging them. Through this new data-driven and exclusive global AI survey, we look forward to furthering the dialogue and perspectives on how AI can be leveraged to build stronger, sustainable and adaptable businesses in the future. Abhinav Kumar, Chief Marketing Officer, TCS.
About Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation that has been partnering with many of the world's largest enterprises on their transformation journeys for over 56 years. Its consulting-led and cognitive-powered portfolio of business, technology and engineering services and solutions is delivered through its unique Location Independent Agile™ delivery model, recognised as a benchmark for excellence in software development.
A part of the Tata group, TCS is the world's largest multinational business group, with over 601,000 of the world's best-trained consultants across 55 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $29 billion for year ending March 31, 2024 and is listed on the BSE and NBI in India. TCS' proactive stance on climate change and award winning work with communities across the world have earned it a place in leading sustainability indices such as the MSCI Global Sustainability Index and FTSE4Good Emerging Index. For more information, click here. Click here for details
