September 2024 | Tata Consultancy Services
The latest wave of artificial intelligence is not only reshaping the landscape of society, it also offers new opportunities to radically reinvent the way we do business, says a a research report by Tata Consultancy Services' Thought Leadership Institute.
The emergence of generative AI combined with traditional AI can now elevate human contribution in business and empower organizations to get the most value from their unique data.
This comprehensive research report from the TCS Thought Leadership Institute reveals a positive sentiment around AI from most executives. In fact, the majority said they are optimistic about the potential impact of AI on their business. Most senior leaders also believe that AI will continue to assist and augment human activities in the next few years, not replace them in the workplace. And while the daily use of GenAI by employees is expected to increase, human creativity and strategic thinking will remain essential for competitive differentiation.
A discovery from the research was that although corporate leaders see the value of investing in AI, most of them lack a cohesive strategy or ways to measure the success of their AI implementations—which may not be wholly surprising, given the accelerated pace of AI’s continued evolution. Yet it will likely be challenging to get boardroom buy-in for AI implementations without success metrics. Company leaders recognize, too, that to fully leverage all that AI has to offer, they will need to make big changes to their business models—and to their infrastructure. Managing a culture of AI-readiness and talent development also ranks high for organizational leaders.
The TCS report reveals these and other insights from leaders of large enterprises around the world in nearly every industry.
Some highlights:
The transformative power of AI
- ·Most executives surveyed have a positive sentiment toward AI.
- 54% believe its impact will be greater than or equal to the internet.
- 59% believe AI’s impact will be greater than or equal to that of smartphones.
- 57% are excited or optimistic about AI’s potential impact on their business.
- Nearly three-quarters of them also recognize the need to make changes to take full advantage of AI.
- 72% are currently reworking or planning to rework their business strategy or operations.
Yet there’s no consensus on AI adoption strategies and not enough metrics to measure success.
- 72% say they need better KPIs for their AI implementations.
Current state of AI
- 59% of corporate functions have AI implementations in-process or have completed AI projects.
- 34% of corporate functions are planning AI implementations.
- Only 20% of corporate leaders say they are well-positioned to leverage AI to their strategic advantage.
Challenges for GenAI
The advent of Generative AI has brought strategic challenges to the forefront:.
- Security and privacy: leaders are concerned about security and privacy issues related to generative AI
- Ethical and responsible AI use: many leaders feel that not enough discussion is taking place with respect to responsible use of AI
- Lack of IT readiness : another concern was that the current IT systems were not sufficient enough to meet the requirements of GenAI
- Talent development and training : many leaders feel that talent development and training is not keeping up with the advances of GenAI
- Cultural shifts: extensive use of GenAI is causing cultural shift, according to business leaders
Not enough metrics for ROI
As the integration of AI into business processes accelerates, expected financial return on such an investment becomes increasingly significant. But only 19% of the respondents said they have "good enough" metrics and KPIs for their current stage of AI deployments. Without adequate KPIs for AI-enabled operations, proving ROI and getting future buy-in is challenging.
Read the full report on the TCS website.
The image used in this story has been generated using AI.
