Why 83% of tech execs see opportunities to accelerate innovation with AI

The age of AI has arrived. According to 83 percent of technical decision makers, Artificial Intelligence offers their companies more opportunity to innovate than ever before. But what’s the best way to ensure AI can boost innovation in your organization?

In its latest survey of 536 technical decision makers, Forrester have attempted to answer that question. Here’s what they discovered.

Insights from key AI decision makers

The 2022 study, Fuel Application Innovation with Cloud AI Services, reveals the current consensus that AI can accelerate application innovation. It takes a close look at the business areas where AI can best be employed right now, and how to overcome skills shortage and other challenges to implementation.

Where AI can create an advantage – right now

AI is establishing itself as a vital tool to create differentiation in customer experiences, leading to competitive advantages in your chosen markets. In fact, according to the survey, almost 75 percent of technical decision-makers believe that every application could benefit from AI to increase functionality and innovation.

However, with limited resources, it pays to be selective and only apply AI in areas where it’s already proven its value. So right now, the key areas where you should consider applying AI are:

• machine translation
• knowledge mining
• speech transcription
• conversational AI
• document process automation.

Do you have the necessary in-house resources?

But there are some bumps in the road to AI implementation. Half of all Forrester’s interviewees believe their organizations still don’t have the right resources in place to add AI capabilities to their apps.

A lack of quality data, plus app development and data science skills shortages are cited as the chief blockers to in-house AI development. In fact, 81 percent of tech leaders say they would use more AI if it was easier to develop and deploy.

The off-the-shelf solution

Some organizations are upping their AI game by investing in new systems and going on a hiring binge for development and data science talent. In fact, 65 percent are increasing their AI spend already. But while new data scientists, systems and software could be a long-term fix, those companies’ risk being beaten out of the market by earlier AI adaptors.

A more rapid solution for any organization in a hurry to reap the benefits of AI-fueled apps are prebuilt, configurable AI cloud services. In addition to slashing deployment schedules, cloud services provide more options for AI capabilities and scale across multiple apps, while enjoying full support and troubleshooting services.

Expert opinion on AI implementation

However, if you choose to implement AI, it’s important to arm yourself with all the facts, expert opinions and guidance.

Download our free white paper Fuel Application Innovation with Cloud AI Services and register for the Microsoft AI Innovation Summit, where industry experts will be discussing AI and the industrial Metaverse.