A new Gartner survey finds 55% of organisations deploying AI consider it for all new use cases and consider risk factors, leading to AI-mature success
A survey conducted by Gartner has found that 55% of organisations that have previously deployed AI always consider AI for every new use case that they are evaluating.
Gartner suggests that companies who invest greater in AI have more business success with business ROI metrics and quickly become ‘AI-mature organisations.’ This AI-first strategy has also led to 52% of organisations stating that risk factors are a critical consideration when evaluating AI use cases.
As digital transformation advances at a rapid pace, industry professionals need to consider how best to continue implementing and deploying AI to stay ahead.
Importance of AI maturity: organisations can benefit from good strategy
Gartner has always stressed the importance of AI to business strategy. They have previously cited that 79% of strategists see AI and analytics as critical to business success over the next two years. On average, strategists said that 50% of strategic planning and execution activities could be partially or fully automated, as currently only 15% are.
This newly released survey was conducted in October through December 2022 among 622 respondents from organisations in the US, France, the UK and Germany that have deployed AI.
Gartner defines an “AI-mature” organisation as those who have deployed more than five AI use cases across several business units and processes, in production for more than three years.
Across all organisations, respondents had deployed an average of 41 AI use cases, with use cases remaining in production for 3.5 years (see Fig.1).
As digital transformation advances at a rapid pace, industry professionals need to consider how best to continue implementing and deploying AI to stay ahead (Image source: Gartner July 2023)
Both the number of use cases and the time in production rose with the size of the organisation, with global organisations reporting an average of 51 use cases in production for 4.3 years.
The findings highlight that the most significant difference among AI-mature organisations was the involvement of legal counsel at the ideation stage of AI use cases. Gartner suggests that AI-mature organisations were 3.8 times more likely to involve legal experts at the ideation phase of an AI project’s life cycle.
When evaluating the return on AI investment, 52% of AI-mature organisations focus on a combination of technical and business metrics to assess ROI, according to the report. In less mature organisations, technical metrics are most often used to measure the value of AI use cases.
41% of AI-mature organisations, compared with 24% of all others, use customer success-related business metrics to estimate ROI. In addition, 47% of AI-mature organisations cite customer service as one of the top three business functions benefiting from AI, compared with 34% of others.
Indeed, customer experience has already been seen to be a primary focus for businesses when it comes to generative AI investments
“An AI-first strategy is a hallmark of AI maturity and a driver of increased return on investment,” said Erick Brethenoux, VP Analyst at Gartner.
“However, AI-first does not mean AI-only. While AI-mature organisations are more likely to consider AI for every possible use case, they are also more likely to weigh risk as a critical factor when determining whether to move forward.”
He continued: “There is uncertainty around the ethics and legality of various AI tactics, as well as a fear of violating privacy regulations.
“Organisations that are more experienced with AI do not want to be told they’ve crossed a line once they are further along in the process of developing an AI use case. Many business and IT leaders focus on AI’s impact on optimisation and productivity, but organisations do not prosper through cost cutting.”