There are just as many use cases for AI as there are companies. For healthcare organizations, AI is playing a role in monitoring equipment, while retailers see AI as a way to better understand customers. Transportation executives are banking on AI to drive autonomous vehicles.
The common denominator across all industry groups is the rate that AI is changing the way things get done. A recent survey of 751 executives, released by KPMG, even finds growing frustration that AI isn’t be implemented fast enough.
While two-thirds of executives feel AI adoption is moving at an appropriate speed within their industry, even more, at least seven in ten, wish their organizations would be more aggressive in adopting AI technology, the survey shows.
“Executives at times underestimate AI’s time to value – how much effort is required to implement AI and see notable results,” says Traci Gusher, principal with KPMG. “True business value only emerges when AI implementation has been tightly linked to business strategy and when AI-powered output has progressed into normal business-as-usual operations far enough to yield substantive value."
In the meantime, most executives across most of the various industries agree that the hype around AI has surpassed its actual capability to deliver. Transportation executives are the most skeptical of AI hype (69 percent), followed by retailers (64 percent), technology executives (57 percent), and healthcare providers (52 percent). Interestingly, financial services executives are the least skeptical, with only 42 percent feeling AI is too hyped up. That’s probably because there are already many instances of AI on the ground, supporting everything from fraud detection to credit scoring.
A lack of understanding of technology capabilities is seen as the top challenge, cited by 46 percent of respondents. That’s followed by lack of training, cited by 36 percent, and lack of initial investment funding, cited by 32 percent.
Skills gaps are also cited as issues, but the severity differs between industries, the KPMG survey shows. A minority of retail and healthcare executives, 43 percent, say their employees have the skills to build AI. Another 49 percent of financial executives think their employees have the skills needed to adopt AI. Transportation and tech executives are have the fewest problems with skills gaps — 63 percent of transportation executives report having skills shortages, along with 61 percent of tech executives.
Here are some positive results seen across industries:
Eighty percent of retail respondents say AI is often able to alleviate customer service issues. Within the next two years, retail insiders (56 percent) believe that AI will have the greatest impact in customer intelligence.
A majority of financial services insiders (85 percent) see AI as playing a role in industry challenges such as detecting fraud. Sixty-four percent believe AI will also play a role in disrupting traditional bank services.
Ninety percent of healthcare executives believe AI technology will improve the patient experience and have the greatest impact on diagnostics (47 percent), electronic health records [EHR] management (41 percent) and robotic tasks (40 percent).
For transportation use cases, 51 percent say AI will play a role in transportation delay prediction systems, while 47 percent say AI is well-suited for traffic management systems. Close to half, 46 percent, say AI will lead to improvements in autonomous vehicles.
Sourced from Forbes - contributed by Joe McKendrick