75% firms have seen a 10% uplift in sales, directly tied to AI implementation, states a report by consulting, technology and outsourcing services company, Capgemini. The research both counters fears that AI will cause massive job losses in the short term, as 83% of firms surveyed say AI has generated new roles in their organizations, and highlights the growth opportunity presented by AI.
According to the company, the Survey “Turning AI into concrete value: the successful implementers’ toolkit”, studied nearly 1,000 organizations across 9 countries and 7 industrial sectors with revenues of more than $500 million that are implementing AI either as a pilot or at scale.
No immediate unemployment threat
The report states that 83% companies have created new jobs as a result of AI technology. Specifically, organizations are producing jobs at a senior level, with two in three jobs being created at the grade of a manager or above. Furthermore, among organizations that have implemented AI at scale, 63% state hat AI has not destroyed any jobs in their organization.
71% of the organizations have proactively initiated up-skilling/re-skilling of employees to take advantage of their AI investments. For those who have implemented AI at scale, 89% believe that AI will make complex jobs easier and 88% believe that intelligent machines will coexist with humans within their businesses.
Leveraging AI for Customer Experience
The study found that tech-savvy businesses are using AI to increase sales, boost operations, facilitate customer engagement and generate business insights; it is working, as 75% firms are already seeing a 10% uplift in sales since starting to use the technology. The research states that customer experience is a big focus of AI adopters as 73% think AI can increase customer satisfaction scores and 65% believe it could reduce future customer churn.
Blocks
However, the research indicates that many organizations have yet to align their AI investments with business opportunities. In the hands of the technologists, businesses are prioritizing challenging AI projects and missing lower hanging fruit.
58% organizations are focused on “need to do” implementations, or those that are high complexity/high benefit projects like customer service issues, while only 46% are deploying “must do” AI implementations with low complexity/high benefit.
The report suggests that if firms tackled both problems simultaneously, they could see higher business benefits. For instance, those implementing a large number of “must do” use cases are able to reduce churn by up to 26% on average.
AI helping the old-school sectors
49% of telecommunications, 41% of retailers and 36% of banking institutions have seen the highest implementation of AI at scale, which means that established and highly-regulated sectors are leading on AI innovation. However, 26% automotive and 20% manufacturing consisting industries are those currently with the lowest levels of utilization among companies implementing AI.
58% of Indian companies are already using AI at scale, and 49% of Australian companies follow closely behind. When it comes to European countries, 31% of companies in Spain, 24% in the Netherlands, and 21% in France are further down the list of those using AI technologies, indicating firms in these markets are not yet ready to adopt the technology.
“AI has the capacity to revolutionize every business in every market sector; its potential is broad and unlimited. However, we are seeing a large contrast between those who are rolling out applied AI solutions at scale and reaping tangible business benefits, versus those who are simply trialing the technology,: said Ron Tolido, Chief Technology Officer, Insights & Data Practice, Capgemini.
“Organizations are focusing more of their efforts on the more complex AI projects and missing out on simpler projects that could drive quicker returns. Organizations, especially those not yet implementing AI at scale, should focus on those low-complexity, high benefit projects to quickly and better leverage the power of AI.”
What lies ahead?
The report suggests that organizations looking to harness the power of AI, will face a range of challenges, and will need to have a clear view of where AI can create the most enduring advantage for themselves and their customers. The report states that by managing the key technological and people challenges; pinpointing where AI can create the most significant, long term advantage; combining top-down vision with bottom-up execution and preparing the organization, firms can get started in implementing AI.