AI More Than Just Hype

Nearly 1 in 5 US Businesses Using Some Form of Artificial Intelligence, Top Applications Focus on Security According to New Study

Foster City, CA – October 11, 2018: While fears of AI taking over the world make for good movie plots, in the real world of US businesses, the technology is being used for much more pragmatic purposes. According to a new study published today by TECHnalysis Research, a tech industry-focused market research and consulting firm, the top three applications leveraging AI that companies have started to use in production environments are Data Security, Spam Filtering, and Network Security.  All three applications address issues related to maintaining a secure digital environment and avoiding malware and phishing attacks within organizations—classic security problems that IT organizations around the world grapple with every day.

“Much of the focus on AI in the press has been on more advanced, almost science-fiction like applications of the technology,” noted Bob O’Donnell, the study’s author and President of TECHnalysis Research, “and, while some of that work is certainly going on, right now it’s the more practical, back office-type functions that are being used more in live environments. Looking ahead, however, it’s clear that applications like Business Intelligence, Voice UI and Natural Language Processing, and Image Recognition/Computer Vision will become more prominent, as they are the top three AI-focused applications that companies currently have in pilot tests.”

The AI in the Enterprise study is based on a comprehensive online survey of 504 US businesses, both medium-sized (100-999 employees) and large enterprises (1,000+ employees) that currently have AI applications in some stage of development or use within their organizations. Study participants were asked everything from what applications they were using to where they were deploying them, as well as who was using them, what chip technologies and AI frameworks they used to create them, and much more.  Of the original sample of over 3,700 respondents, TECHnalysis Research determined that just over 18% were doing some type of work with AI and, within that group, 246 respondents from medium-sized US businesses and 258 respondents from US-based large enterprises qualified for the complete survey.



Fig. 1

Company size and tech sophistication level had a strong influence on usage, as Figure 1 illustrates. Half of medium-sized companies were using AI in full deployment, growing to 61% for large companies, but an impressive 72% of companies who classified themselves as early adopters were making regular, current use of AI-based applications.

The top goal for companies using AI applications was to improve the efficiency of processes being performed in their organizations, followed by the desire to speed up or automate certain tasks. As for challenges, the big issues were around the costs and complexity involved with creating and/or deploying AI-based apps.

Just over 75% of organizations used some type of cloud service to build their AI apps and the leading cloud provider for AI apps was Google’s Cloud Platform. When it came to actually using the applications, however, companies were slightly more likely to deploy them in their internal data centers/private clouds, with public clouds a very close second.
Respondents to the survey had the opportunity to express their opinions about how they view the impact of AI in their organizations, and while many did raise concerns about potential job losses caused by AI, more of them were excited by the possibilities that the technology could bring to their organizations.

If you are interested in more information on the subject, other topics covered in the study include what cognitive services were used for AI applications, what types of functions were being performed in the cloud, where the data sources for their AI models came from, the departments deploying AI applications within their organizations, and much more.

A summary version of the TECHnalysis Research AI in the Enterprise Study is available in PDF format and can be downloaded for free here. The complete 178-slide version of the report with detailed breakdowns for every question is available for purchase. For additional information, please e-mail the author at bob@technalysisresearch.com.

Founded by technology market research veteran Bob O’Donnell, TECHnalysis Research, LLC provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community.

You can download a copy of this press release in Adobe Acrobat format here.