The Covid-19 pandemic has made more businesses move into Artificial Intelligence (AI), but the same old barriers to adoption persist.
This is according to a new paper from IBM, which states that 43 percent of businesses increased the rollout of AI due to the pandemic.
Compared to last year, at the height of the pandemic, 2021 has remained relatively flat in terms of AI adoption. However, businesses are planning “significant investments” in the coming months, the report added.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is said to be the most sought-after category, as businesses strive to improve and automate their customer service.
But all the same barriers to adoption persist, including the largest one: the lack of skilled workers. For example, most organizations agree that knowing how AI came to a decision is vital, but more than half don’t know the answer.
Another key element to successful AI deployments is being able to access data anywhere. Almost all (90 percent) of IT pros say being able to run AI projects wherever their data sits is crucial, while two-thirds said they used 20+ data sources for their AI.
“A large majority of those investments continue to be focused on the three key capabilities that define AI for business — automating IT and processes, building trust in AI outcomes, and understanding the language of business,” said IBM SVP Rob Thomas.
“We believe these investments will continue to accelerate rapidly as customers look for new, innovative ways to drive their digital transformations by taking advantage of hybrid cloud and AI.”
