New market research commissioned by IBM revealed that global AI adoption grew steadily over the last year, to 35 percent of those surveyed in 2022, further underscoring that AI growth is poised to accelerate as it continues to mature, becoming more accessible and easier to implement.

Other data points from the “Global AI Adoption Index 2022,” conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM, reveal this growth was due to companies recognizing the value of AI as they emerged from the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and invested in their digital transformation while dealing with talent and skills shortages. In fact, the study shows that AI adoption was up 4 percentage points compared with 2021.

For the first time, the report also polled companies about their plans to use AI in their sustainability initiatives and found that AI is poised to play a significant role. 66% of IT professionals surveyed said that their company is either currently applying AI, or plans to apply AI, to accelerate ESG initiatives.

Highlights from the “Global AI Adoption Index 2022” include:

• Global AI adoption is growing steadily, and most companies already use or plan to use AI: Today, 35% of companies reported using AI in their business. Compared with 2021, organizations are 13% more likely to have adopted AI in 2022. Additionally, 42% of companies report they are exploring AI. Large companies are more likely than smaller companies to use AI.

• Setting clear data and AI strategies are key for horizontal deployment: A major explanation for gradual AI adoption is the need to implement a successful data management strategy and applying AI to that data achieve business goals. Companies that have not deployed AI are three times as likely to say that they have little to no confidence their company has the proper data management tools.

  • Automation is helping address skills gaps, labor shortages: More than costs, lack of tools, or project or data complexity, the skills gap remains the biggest barrier to AI adoption. At the same time, AI is also helping organizations address skills shortages, for example by automating tasks for skilled workers so they can be more productive, or by using AI-assisted learning or employee engagement.

  • A growing emphasis on trust – but few concrete actions: Establishing trustworthy, responsible AI practices and AI maturity go hand-in-hand: The more likely a company is to have deployed AI, the more likely they are to value the importance of trustworthiness.

  • Building more sustainable operations: AI is poised to play a growing role in the sustainability initiatives of organizations around the world as more than two-thirds of businesses either use or plan to use AI today as part of their sustainability initiatives. One-in-five companies are already adopting AI because of environmental pressures.

  • Popular use cases like automation, security drive adoption: Organizations are applying AI in a wide variety of use cases today, with the most advanced adoption happening in areas like IT operations, security and threat detection and business process automation.

Download the full report here

Read the detailed global press release-Click here

India Findings

• 57% of IT professionals in India report that their organization has actively deployed AI in their business, and over a quarter (27%) indicate that their organization is exploring the use of AI. Adoption is being driven by advances that make AI more accessible for companies (50%), and the increasing amount of AI embedded into standard off the shelf business applications (46%). Over 50% of IT professionals in India at companies exploring or deploying AI say their organization plans to invest in research and development (56%), building proprietary AI solutions (54%), and reskilling and workforce development (52%) in the next year. The greatest barrier to successful AI adoption according to IT professionals in India at organizations exploring or deploying AI is limited AI skills, expertise, or knowledge (38%).

• IT professionals in India at companies exploring or deploying AI are in near unanimous agreement (99%) that it is important to their company that they can build and run AI projects wherever their data resides. More than 3 in 4 IT professionals in India (78%) report that at least a quarter of the workforce at their company requires access to company data to make decisions. While 85% of IT professionals in India say that their company draws from 2o or more different data sources to inform their AI, BI, and analytics systems, only 51% of IT professionals in India report that their company is using a data fabric architecture, with over a quarter (28%) reporting that their company is considering to use a data fabric architecture.

• A majority of IT professionals in India at organizations exploring or deploying AI (93%) agree that being able to explain how their AI arrived at a decision is important to their company. Lack of an AI strategy (70%) is the largest barrier companies face in developing explainable and trustworthy AI perceived by IT professionals in India at organizations exploring or deploying AI.

• Over 50% of IT professionals in India report their company is currently using or considering automation software or tools to drive greater efficiencies in IT operations (52%) and business processes/tasks (53%) and to give valuable time back to employees (55%). Over half of IT professionals in India report their company is using or considering using their automation capabilities for automating IT operations (55%).

• Nearly 6 in 10 (58%) IT professionals in India say their company is currently applying AI to accelerate ESG initiatives, and 16% report that their business plans to apply AI to their ESG initiatives. 48% of IT professionals in India believe AI has the greatest potential to help solve ESG/sustainability challenges such as driving more efficient business processes and daily operations.

Siddhesh Naik - Data, AI & Automation Sales Leader, IBM Technology Sales, IBM India South Asia said, “As the adoption of AI grows steadily, organizations in India are using AI to augment their core business processes and services to better serve their clients, employees, and important stakeholders. We see three trends clearly emerging from the study findings - First, automation use cases are at the forefront of AI adoption as businesses are using AI to stay competitive and operate more efficiently. Second, effective data management and AI deployment go hand in hand because without the right tools, it is difficult to leverage data across their business. And third, it is critical to ensure trust in AI by explaining how the AI arrived at a decision.” 

Methodology
This poll was conducted from March 30-April 12, 2022, among a sample of 7,502 senior business decision-makers with some knowledge/influence over their company’s IT decisions, including 500 respondents each in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, China, India, Singapore, Australia, Canada, UAE, and South Korea, and 1000 respondents in across the Latin America region (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru). The interviews were conducted online and the margin of error for the full sample in each country is +/- 4 percentage points, and the margin of error for the Latin America region is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% confidence level. See full details on the methodology at the end of the summary.