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AI adoption rising, says IBM survey

Ines Lin, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES Asia 0

Credit: DIGITIMES

The global proportion of enterprises having adopted AI stands at 35% currently, increasing 4pp from 2021, according to an online sample survey of 7,502 enterprises around the world undertaken during March 30-April 12, 2022 by Morning Consult commissioned by IBM.

China and India have the highest rates of 58% and 57% respectively for AI deployment, while the rates are 28% for Canada, 26% for the UK, 25% for the US and 22% for South Korea.

Of the surveyed enterprises, 28% have a holistic AI strategy in place, 25% focus only on limited or specific use cases, and 37% are developing an AI strategy.

In terms of cloud computing environment, 43% of the surveyed enterprises use private clouds, 32% hybrid or multiple clouds, 13% public clouds and 8% on-premises servers.

Although an increasing number of enterprises think trustworthiness of AI is important, a majority of them have not taken steps to ensure that their AI is trustworthy and responsible: 74% have not reduced unintended bias; 68% have not tracked performance variations and model shift; 61% have not made sure that they can explain AI-powered decisions; and 60% have not developed ethical AI policies.

For factors hindering successful AI adoption, limited AI skills, expertise or knowledge is regarded as a barrier by 34% of the surveyed enterprises; price too high (29%); lack of tools or platforms to develop models (25%); projects too complicated or difficult to integrate or scale (24%); and much data complexity (24%).

Of the surveyed enterprises, two-thirds are either executing or planning to use AI to address their sustainability goals.

Proportion of survey enterprises adopting AI by country

Country

Have deployed AI

Exploring AI

China

58%

30%

India

57%

27%

Italy

42%

41%

Singapore

39%

46%

UAE

38%

40%

Germany

34%

44%

Global average

34%

42%

Source: IBM, compiled by DIGITIMES, July 2022

Top-10 factors that drive AI adoption

Factor

Proportion of surveyed enterprises

Technological advancement in AI

43%

Need to reduce costs and automate key processes

42%

Increasing amount of AI embedded into standard off-the-shelf business applications

37%

Competitive pressure

31%

Demand due to COVID

31%

Pressure from customers

25%

Directives from leadership

23%

Labor or skill shortage

22%

Company culture

22%

Environmental pressure

20%

Source: IBM, compiled by DIGITIMES, July 2022

Top-5 purposes of using AI

Purpose

Proportion of surveyed enterprises

Automation of IT processes

33%

Information security and threat detection

29%

Automation of business processes

28%

Business analytics or intelligence

26%

Marketing & sales

26%

Source: IBM, compiled by DIGITIMES, July 2022