How to get real impact from AI?
“Yet a painful fact persists. AI is hard.” says PWC in an article summarizing their 2021 survey of over 1000 executives of companies using or considering AI in their businesses.
How do you make AI less painful? By making investments with impactful results.
Thankfully, PWC surveyed these AI interested and experienced execs on which categories of AI investments are getting results and impact from the new technology. Here the survey data can provide insights.
In the most interesting chart in the article (which I’m having trouble embedding here for your perusal), PWC asked the following question about 10 areas of potential business impact - “To what degree have your AI investments in this area lived up to expectations” The 10 categories of investment included investments in
innovation,
cost savings,
improved decision-making
increased productivity/efficiency
and more
And what investment category showed the strongest results from AI according to this survey - AI efforts to create better customer experiences. This is a delightful result. Better user experiences through AI. Its TRUE! and IMPACTFUL!
PS - In an excellent example of survey bias, 86% of the executives surveyed say that AI will be a “mainstream technology” at their companies in 2021. If part of your survey selection includes asking if the company is using or considering AI, you can expect this high “mainstream” result. Yet, “mainstream” or not, the increasing interest and investment in AI from many businesses is hard to dispute.
REFERENCES:
www.pwc.com/us/en/tech-effect/ai-analytics/ai-predictions.html
PwC’s annual AI Predictions survey, now in its fourth year, explores the activities and attitudes of US business and technology executives who are involved in their organization’s AI strategies. Among this year’s 1,032 survey respondents, 71% have C-suite titles and 25% are from companies with revenues of $5 billion and up. They represent industrial products (20%), consumer markets (20%), financial services (18%), tech, media and telecommunications (17%), health industries (17%), and energy, utilities and mining (8%). The survey was conducted by PwC Research, PwC’s global Center of Excellence for market research and insight, in October 2020.
