2023, the year of generative AI for French companies

French companies to take their first steps in generative artificial intelligence have multiplied in recent months. Transavia, the low-cost airline, was one of the first to put online a travel recommendation service based on AI Gen.

In the travel industry, Club Med formalized its strategy at the end of November with the ambition of reconciling customer, ethics and growth. Its first use cases relate to the generation of new data, in particular text, sound and images.

Acceleration in retail around assistants

Retail players have also since largely invested in this field of innovation. CDiscount had made a remarkable debut by offering a chatbot acting as a real digital assistant.

Other distribution companies have followed suit, like Bricorama and Castorama. Banks and insurance companies are not left out. These include, among others, Axa and Groupama. In energy, ChatGPT implementations are implemented.

In 2024, according to our information, Suez and TotalEnergies also intend to deploy in production the first use cases of generative AI. But within these organizations, attention is also drawn to the environmental impact of GenAI.

Indeed, the issues of frugality and responsible AI seem to have receded into the background. It is partly to these issues that specialized LLMs must respond, to be distinguished from generalist and very consumer models such as that of OpenAI.

$19.4 billion in IAGen in 2023

The investment of French organizations in these artificial intelligence technologies is not a specificity at the global level. According to IDC, spending on IAGen’s solutions is expected to reach $19.4 billion this year.

And next year, they should more than double, the firm already anticipates. Between 2023 and 2027, these investments will grow by an average of 86.1% each year. Within 3 years, they will therefore weigh 151.1 billion dollars.

This amount includes GenAI’s software as well as infrastructure hardware and related IT and business services. However, these expenses represent only a part of the investments devoted to AI.

2023/2024: priority to productivity

This share is bound to grow. In 2027, GenAI spending will represent 29% of all AI spending, compared to 10.8% in 2023.

“Despite the headwinds of IT in 2023, companies have accelerated their exploration of GenAI to stimulate the transformation of the company. In 2024, the transition to AI everywhere will enter a critical construction phase, as companies make major new investments in order to drastically reduce the time and costs associated with use cases focused on customer and employee productivity”” comments Rick Villars, vice president Worldwide Research at IDC.

What next? “The focus will be on investments that boost revenues and business results,” believes the research firm.