Page 12 - AeM_January2021

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Worldwide spending on AI is expected

to reach $110 billion in 2024

Global spending on artificial intelligence (AI) is to deliver insights at scale (using AI to support
forecast to double over the next four years, growing decisions and automation)."
from $50.1 billion in 2020 to more than $110 billion
in 2024. Two of the leading drivers for AI adoption are delivering
a better customer experience and helping employees to
According to the IDC’s Worldwide Artificial get better at their jobs. This is reflected in the leading
Intelligence Spending Guide, spending on AI use cases for AI, which include automated customer
systems will accelerate over the next several years service agents, sales process recommendation and
as organizations deploy artificial intelligence as part automation, automated threat intelligence and
of their digital transformation efforts and to remain prevention, and IT automation. Combined, these four
competitive in the digital economy. The compound use cases represent nearly a third of all AI spending in
annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2019-2024 period 2020. Some of the fastest growing use cases are
automated human resources, IT automation, and
"Companies will adopt AI — not just because they can, pharmaceutical research and discovery.
but because they must," said Ritu Jyoti, program vice
president, Artificial Intelligence at IDC. "AI is the The two industries that will spend the most on AI
technology that will help businesses to be agile, solutions throughout the forecast are Retail and
innovate, and scale. The companies that become 'AI Banking. The Retail industry will largely focus its AI
powered' will have the ability to synthesize information investments on improving the customer experience via
(using AI to convert data into information and then into chatbots and recommendation engines while Banking
knowledge), the capacity to learn (using AI to will include spending on fraud analysis and
understand relationships between knowledge and apply investigation and program advisors and
the learning to business problems), and the capability recommendation systems. Discrete Manufacturing,

12 January 2021: AI & Automation in Marketing