All companies plan to increase their AI spending next year

A survey conducted by the Insights group of the MIT Technology Review among 600 companies around the world and published on Thursday shows that all the leaders of these companies plan to increase their expenses in the coming year “to modernize the data infrastructure and adopt AI”.

The study was conducted from June to August of this year, and interviewed companies with an annual turnover of more than or equal to half a billion dollars, based in 12 countries

The executives interviewed were mostly CIOs, data/analysis managers, IT managers, AI managers or data engineers.

Do companies have very optimistic expectations?

Here are the main conclusions of the report:

The adoption of AI by companies is ready to move up a gear.

Technology managers are rushing to deploy or experiment with it.

Organizations are focusing on retooling to envision a data- and AI-driven future.

Companies have very optimistic expectations, note the author of the report. “81% of respondents expect AI to increase the efficiency of their sector by at least 25% over the next two years. A third of them say that the gain will be at least 50%”.

The survey highlights that companies also expect artificial intelligence programs to offer new routes to products and revenue. “While 70% of respondents state that it is very important for AI projects to help reduce costs, the same percentage states that it is very important for these projects to generate new revenues (although there are variations between industries and geographical areas),” the report says. It is clear that the leaders do not consider that the time has come to close the hatches”.

“We are better able today than a few years ago to create efficiencies”

Almost half of the companies surveyed said they would increase their spending on data infrastructure and AI by more than 25%, the study notes.

The survey includes some examples. Thus, Jon Francis, head of data and analysis at the car manufacturer General Motors, tells the following:

“Thanks to the progress of AI and Machine Learning (Machine Learning) and the investments we have made, we are better able today than a few years ago to create efficiencies […] “We will do this in the back office with HR chatbots, in the workshop with predictive maintenance, and in IT operations by scaling and producing software development.”

The survey contains a wealth of data on business priorities. For example, among the main use cases for generative AI, respondents cited, in order of importance, “personalization and customer experience”, “supply chain optimization” and “quality control”.

MIT Technology Review Insights (in English)

70% are testing AI in France

The study also points to a number of differences at the global level. For example, in terms of preparation for the deployment of generative AI, Japan is much more advanced than France, with 35% of respondents stating that their company is “investing and adopting it”, compared to only 28% of respondents in France.

Moreover, for France, 70% of respondents assure experimenting with AI, and 10% not doing anything about it.

MIT Technology Review Insights (in English)

When it comes to increasing expenses, the majority of respondents feel that their peers in their respective sectors are moving quickly in their spending, according to the survey. “Most of the respondents perceive similar actions from their peers – 60% of the respondents say that the adoption of AI in their sector is “fast” or “very fast,” the survey notes.

“Although the dynamics vary somewhat by sector, the trend is that the adoption of AI in the company is progressing at a steady pace, and that the modernization of data to support it remains a priority.”