Early adopters maximize their advantage due to COVID-19

Despite the pandemic, 71% of businesses say they are confident that their AI initiatives will deliver positive results in the next 12 to 24 months, according to a study by Omdia.

However, the study also found that data privacy and accountability issues could significantly slow market adoption for AI-powered solutions.

Nearly half (42%) of companies reported to be running pilot or live AI projects, with AI ownership split evenly among CEOs, CTOs, research and development, and individual business units.

Early adopters versus the world

The study was based on a survey of 365 companies across several industry verticals, ranging from startups with fewer than 100 employees to global companies with more than 10,000 employees.

Overall, businesses remain bullish in their AI investments, with a mix of opinions about the impact of COVID-19. About half see the coronavirus having no impact, or even accelerating AI projects, while the other half say it will either slow, dramatically slow, or completely derail their AI plans.

Early adopters that made investments in AI before the pandemic are reaping the benefits of those decisions, and most will not slow their adoption of AI because of the COVID-19 crisis, according to Omdia.

Such companies are confident about positive results within the next 12 to 24 months, with nearly a third (31%) very confident, 40% confident, 23% somewhat confident, and just 3% not confident.

Companies that did not invest in AI before the pandemic are likely to delay their investments until better economic conditions are in place, creating the potential for a significant competitive advantage for the early adopter companies.

Enterprises are expressing interest in a wide range of AI business cases. Seventeen percent are piloting AI in at least one function or business unit, 40% are investigating technologies and use cases, 17% have a production AI deployment in at least one function or business unit, 13% have identified at least one use case and are developing a pilot, and 7% are scaling AI deployments across multiple business functions or units.

The issue of data privacy is front and center, with 42% of businesses reporting that privacy considerations are slowing down their AI initiatives, 18% saying they are significantly delaying initiatives, and 31% saying privacy is having no effect on their momentum and they are continuing on schedule.