A new study by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, reveals that more than eight out of 10 (86%) of senior business leaders have already deployed artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance existing revenue streams or create new ones. This compares to a staggering 93% of surveyed executives from Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK) region, who currently have AI projects aimed at growing revenue.
The ‘TCS AI for Business Study’, a comprehensive report on the state of AI adoption and its impact on businesses, also finds that 69% of businesses are more focused on using AI to spur innovation and increase revenue than on productivity improvement and cost optimisation. For respondents from Ireland and the UK, this figure was significantly lower at 59%.
Executives are generally positive about the impact of AI, with 57% globally reporting excitement or optimism about the potential impact of AI on businesses. This figure is slightly lower in Ireland and UK at 50%.
Among all respondents in the study, 45% expect up to half their employees will need to use generative AI capabilities to do their job in three years’ time — and another 41% think even more will do so. Most (65%) believe AI will augment and enhance human capabilities, enabling people to focus on higher-value activities that require creativity and strategic thinking.
Gerard Grant, Director of Strategic Initiatives at TCS Ireland, said, “2023 was a year of exuberance, with every enterprise experimenting with AI/GenAI use cases. We are now entering an era of wide-and-deep enterprise AI adoption. Enterprises, however, are realising that the path to production for AI solutions is not easy, and that building an AI-mature enterprise is a marathon, not a sprint. Our AI study has confirmed this sentiment; it has also highlighted that enterprises feel underprepared to deploy AI solutions at scale as well as to manage the profound shifts in the roles of people and ways of working resulting from such deployments.”
Business leaders are less certain about the path to transformation. Only 4% of global respondents use AI in a way that has transformed their business, this figure is slightly higher in Ireland and UK at 5%. Nearly a quarter (24%) of global respondent say they haven’t even moved beyond the initial exploratory phase; this is even less among Ireland and UK respondents at 15%.
The report finds that top barriers to business success include current corporate IT infrastructures and customer expectations. Organisations also recognise the need to move beyond existing metrics to measure the success of AI implementations; nearly three-fourths (72%) of global respondents and over three-fourths (77%) of Ireland and UK respondents say they don’t have the right metrics. The survey also highlights the need for businesses to take a strategic approach to AI adoption and develop the right performance indicators to measure the impact of the technology on their business.
TCS was one of the first organisations in the industry to bring together the capabilities of cloud computing and artificial intelligence under its AI.Cloud unit to cater to the emerging needs of customers. The unit drives TCS’ multi-layered AI architecture to help strategise AI deployment for customers across their value chains, enable deployment and govern thereafter.
The TCS Thought Leadership Institute surveyed nearly 1,300 CEOs and other senior executives with P&L responsibilities, across 12 industries and 24 countries. The survey included 111 respondents from businesses across the United Kingdom and Ireland. About half the companies had $1 billion to $5 billion in annual revenue and the other half had over $5 billion in revenue. Other key results from the global report, which can be found at on.tcs.com/2024-global-AI-study, include:
- Executives believe the impact of AI will be greater than or equal to that of the internet (54%) and smartphones (59%)
- Corporate functions with the most completed AI projects: Finance/comptroller (completion rate of 29%); HR (completion rate of 28%); Marketing (completion rate of 28%)
- 65% of senior executives say their competitive advantage will still come from humans — with their creativity, intuition, and strategic thinking unleashed by AI’s augment and assist capabilities
- 40% of executives say that in the future they have a lot of changes to make to their business before they can take full advantage of AI
- Over half (55%) said they were actively making changes right now to their business or operating models, or to their products and services, due to the potential benefits and risks of AI
- 81% of executives highlight the need for global AI standards and regulations
- 93% of executives surveyed in the Ireland & United Kingdom said they have AI projects aimed at growing revenue. Executives in other regions are equally enthusiastic with 89% in North America, 88% in APAC, 83% in Continental Europe, and 80% in Latin America
- Nearly two-thirds of BFSI (64%) and manufacturing (63%) industry executives surveyed say they are excited or optimistic about the impact of AI on businesses
“Since our inception in 1968, TCS has always been leading change in embracing new technologies, helping decipher the opportunities behind them and execute transformational projects for our clients to rapidly unlock business value. Through our TCS Thought Leadership Institute, we have brought in new insights on every key technology development and how various industries and personas (CEOs, CFOs, CIOs etc.) are leveraging them. Through this new, data-driven and unique global AI study, we hope to further deepen the dialogue and perspectives on how AI can be used to build stronger, more sustainable and adaptable businesses for the future,” said Abhinav Kumar, Chief Marketing Officer, TCS.