Artificial Intelligence has proved to be highly effective in a number of areas. Almost every industry is making use of Artificial Intelligence to maximise their output and to amplify the use of their resources. A recent study published by Microsoft suggests that the rate of innovation and workforce productivity is expected to double with AI’s help in the APAC region over the next three years. 

The study was created by surveying up to 1600 business leaders, more than 1580 workers. It was found that eighty percent of decision-makers in the business world today, agree that artificial intelligence is crucial in ensuring business success and giving the company a competitive edge over the others. 

But, if we look at the number of people implementing AI solutions to their daily operations, only 41% of the APAC area organisations have adopted these emerging technologies, and they are expecting their competitiveness to double by 2021. 

Why is the adoption of Artificial Intelligence crucial?

Let us understand why it is important to adopt AI in your organisation and some of the key drivers that pushed organisations to embark on implementing artificial intelligence. 

• Improve productivity (9%)
• Boost innovation (15%)
• Enhanced customer engagement (26%)
• Grow margins (18%)
• Increased competitive edge (19%)

According to the IDC APAC VP of Consulting Operations, Victor Lim, the organisations that adopted artificial intelligence last year saw a tangible increase in the above-mentioned areas in the range of close to 18-26%. He also forecasts further improvements of close to 1.8 times in the coming three years. He expects the biggest jump to be in the area of competitiveness and accelerated innovation. 

Also Read: Top 9 Artificial Intelligence Startups in India 2021

More needs to be done

After exploring the various metrics that can be considered significant to ensure artificial intelligence deployment success, Microsoft concluded that more needs to be done to boost AI initiatives, strategy, capabilities, and infrastructure in the APAC. 

Lim also says that the Asia Pacific is not yet ready for artificial intelligence. In order to be successful in the AI race, organisations will have to significantly improve their readiness to adopt AI and to ensure that it is a core part of their learning agility culture. 

Lim also urges businesses to invest in transformative technology, and emerging technologies as these technologies will provide a long term benefit to organisations even though there may not be an immediate reward. According to him, “There is an urgent need for talents and tools to develop, deploy and monitor AI models, along with the availability of a robust data estate with the adequate governance.”

Addressing the talent gap

According to the study published by Microsoft, most business leaders in this region view AI in a positive light in terms of how it would impact their job in the future. Up to 60% of these business leaders believe that AI has the potential to enhance their current role and to reduce any repetitive tasks.

A greater number of people believe that AI will produce new jobs when compared to the people who believe that technology will replace existing jobs. 18% of business leaders believe in AI producing new jobs, and 15% feel that their jobs may be replaced by AI. 

Also Read: Top 20 Artificial Intelligence Interview Questions for 2021

When we compare the same aspect to workers as opposed to business leaders, workers are more optimistic about the change, and only 5% of the workers are expecting AI to replace jobs. 13% of the workers anticipate that AI will create new jobs. 

Workers are also more likely to upskill and continue to learn emerging technologies to stay relevant and up-to-date in the current market scenario. Close to 20% of the executives feel that it is challenging to bring their workers to upskill and undergo relearning. However, only 14% of the workers agreed with this thought-process. 

According to the study, 6% of the APAC companies are AI leaders and have already integrated artificial intelligence as part of the core business process. Thus, increasing their business benefit by 100% relative to the other organisations in APAC. To conclude, we can see that artificial intelligence has shaped itself to be a keystone technology. It dictates how other strategies are implemented within an organisation. Thus, companies must be proactive in ensuring that they pursue and invest in AI-solutions to help to unlock a greater business value and reduce the risk of falling behind others. 

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