Artificial intelligence, regarded as “essential” to competitiveness, will have a dramatic impact on businesses by 2020, according to a study by Tata Consultancy services.

Focused on the current and future impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the seventh Global Trends Study, concluded in June last year, polled 835 leading executives across 13 global industry sectors in four regions of the world, finding that 84 per cent of the companies see the use of AI as “essential” to competitiveness, with a further 50 per cent seeing the technology as “transformative”.

Exploring the views and actions of decision makers from global companies with average revenues of $20 billion, the study revealed AI is spreading across almost all areas of a company.

Biggest adopoters

The biggest adopters of AI today are, not surprisingly, IT departments, with two-thirds (67 per cent) of survey respondents using AI to detect security intrusions, user issues and deliver automation.

However, by 2020, almost a third (32 per cent) of companies believe AI’s greatest impact will be in sales, marketing or customer service, while one in five (20 per cent) see impact being largest in non-customer facing corporate functions, including finance, corporate development, and HR.

Companies participated from a range of industries, including automotive, banking and financial services, energy, healthcare, life sciences, industrial manufacturing and retail. This cross-sector level of insight highlighted AI’s workplace impact as a key supplemental force for the next few years.

Examples include guiding customer service representatives to quickly resolve customer problems and anticipate future purchases, and securely reconciling overnight transactions for financial institutions, or giving time back to HR professionals by managing the time consuming on-boarding processes for new hires.

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