Jenalea Howell

AI Market Lead, AI Summit Series

Brands that made investments in AI before the pandemic are reaping the benefits of those decisions, and most will not slow their adoption because of the COVID-19 crisis.

Despite the pandemic, 71% of businesses now say they are confident that their AI initiatives will deliver positive results in the next two years, according to a study by Omdia. 

Based on responses from 365 companies across several industry verticals, nearly half (42%) of companies reported to be running pilot or live AI projects, with ownership split evenly among CEOs, CTOs, research and development, and individual business units. 

Early adopters of AI  

Early adopters – those who made investments in AI before the pandemic – are reaping the benefits of those decisions, and most will not slow their adoption because of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Such companies are confident about positive results within the next 12 to 24 months, with nearly a third (31%) very confident, 40% confident, 23% somewhat confident, and just 3% not confident. 

Despite the pandemic, 71% of businesses now say they are confident that their AI initiatives will deliver positive results in the next two years.

Companies that did not invest in AI before the pandemic are likely to delay their investments until better economic conditions are in place, creating the potential for a significant competitive advantage for the early adopter companies. 

Enterprises are expressing interest in a wide range of AI business cases. There are 17% piloting AI in at least one function or business unit, 40% are investigating technologies and use cases, 17% have a production AI deployment in at least one function or business unit, 13% have identified at least one-use case and are developing a pilot, and 7% are scaling AI deployments across multiple business functions or units. 

Acknowledging potential issues   

However, the study also found that data privacy and accountability issues could significantly slow market adoption for AI-powered solutions, with 42% of businesses reporting that privacy considerations are slowing down their AI initiatives, 18% saying they are significantly delaying initiatives. 

Moving into 2021 and as companies begin to plan a recovery from COVID-19 in a new world of data needs, business must seek solutions across the AI industry ecosystem to find the answers for today’s security issues and tomorrow’s ethical challenges.