Cost Optimization, Customer Experience, and Revenue Growth are Top Focus Areas for AI Initiatives

Gartner Study Exposes 66% of Organizations Increased or Did Not Change AI Investments Because of the Onset of COVID-19. A Gartner, Inc. poll of roughly 200 business and IT experts on September 24, 2020, exposed that 24% of participants’ organizations increased their expert system (AI) investments and 42% kept them the same since the onset of COVID-19. Development –– namely consumer experience and retention, and profits growth –– together with expense optimization were the leading focus locations for their existing AI efforts.

Throughout the next six-nine months, 75% of respondents will continue or start brand-new AI efforts as they move into the Renew phase of their organization’s post-pandemic Reset.

“Business investment in AI has continued unabated regardless of the crisis,” stated Frances Karamouzis, differentiated research vice president at Gartner. “However, the most significant battle of moving AI efforts into production is the inability for organizations to connect those financial investments back to company value.”

Seventy-nine percent of participants said their organizations were checking out or piloting AI jobs, while just 21% mentioned their AI efforts were in production.

Lack of AI Skill is a Misconception

The minimal strides made throughout organizations in operationalizing AI can not always be associated with the absence of AI talent. A Gartner survey of 607 IT leaders in November and December 2019 found that just 7% of participants stated that limited AI skills are a barrier to AI application. Rather, security and personal privacy issues, together with the intricacy of integrating AI within existing facilities, are at the top of the list.

“AI talent is not one thing, it’s multiple things,” said Erick Brethenoux, research vice president at Gartner. “The greatest misconception in the journey to successfully scaling AI is the search for ‘unicorns,’ or the ideal combination of AI, organization and IT skills all present in a single resource. Because this is impossible to satisfy, focus instead on uniting a well-balanced combination of such skills to ensure outcomes.”

Organizations with the most affordable AI maturity level are not experiencing a shortage of AI skills, with 56% reporting they either have enough skill or can easily hire or train AI skill. As organizations increase in AI maturity, so too does the level of reported AI skill, with 89% having no problems getting AI skills at the highest maturity level.

Global robotic procedure automation (RPA) software earnings are forecasted to reach $1.89 billion in 2021, an increase of 19.5% from 2020, according to the current forecast from Gartner, Inc. In spite of financial pressures brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the RPA market is still anticipated to grow at double-digit rates through 2024. Worldwide RPA software application earnings are expected to reach $1.58 billion in 2020, a boost of 11.9% from 2019 (see Table 1). Through 2020, average RPA rates are anticipated to decrease by 10% to 15%, with a yearly 5% to 10% reduction anticipated in 2021 and 2022, producing strong downward rates pressure.

The pandemic and ensuing recession increased interest in RPA for lots of enterprises. Gartner predicts that 90% of big companies worldwide will have adopted RPA in some kind by 2022 as they seek to digitally empower crucial service procedures through durability and scalability while recalibrating human labor and handbook effort.

Through 2024, large organizations will triple the capacity of their existing RPA portfolios. Most of the “brand-new” invest will come from large organizations that are purchasing brand-new add-on capacity from their original supplier or partners within the community.

“As companies grow, they will need to add licenses to run RPA software on extra servers and add extra cores to handle the load,” said Mr. Biscotti. “This trend is a natural reflection of the increasing needs being put on an organization’s ‘everywhere’ facilities.”

Future RPA Clients Will Come from Non-IT Purchasers

The adoption of RPA will increase as awareness of RPA grows amongst business users. In reality, by 2024, Gartner predicts nearly half of all new RPA customers will come from organization buyers who are outside the IT company.