How can AI create value for businesses?
The biggest challenge in implementing artificial intelligence (AI) is moving from concept to scale, a new report from Deloitte finds.
The report, The AI Dossier, examines the most compelling business use cases for AI across six major industries. The report helps business leaders understand the value AI can deliver today and in the future so that they can make smarter decisions about when, where, and how to deploy AI within their organisations.
"Artificial intelligence has made the leap to practical reality and is quickly becoming a competitive necessity. Yet, amidst the current frenzy of AI advancement and adoption, many leaders are questioning what AI can actually do for their businesses," said Nitin Mittal, U.S. AI co-leader and principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "The AI Dossier can help these leaders understand the value AI can deliver and how to prioritise their investment in AI, today and in the future."
"The AI Dossier" illustrates use cases across six industries, including consumer; energy, resources and industrial; financial services; government and public services; life sciences and health care; and technology, media and telecommunications. For each industry, the report highlights the most valuable, business-ready use cases for AI-related technologies – examining the key business issues and opportunities, how AI can help, and the benefits that are likely to be achieved. The report also highlights the top emerging AI use cases that are expected to have a major impact on the industry's future.
Six ways AI creates value for business
The report looks across all the industry-specific use cases to identify six major ways AI can create value for business:
- Cost reduction: Applying AI and intelligent automation solutions to automate tasks that are relatively low value and often repetitive, reducing costs through improved efficiency and quality.
- Speed to execution: Reducing the time required to achieve operational and business results by minimizing latency.
- Reduced complexity: Improving understanding and decision making through analytics that are more proactive, predictive and able to see patterns in increasingly complex sources.
- Transformed engagement: Changing the way people interact with technology, enabling businesses to engage with people on human terms rather than forcing humans to engage on machine terms.
- Fueled innovation: Redefining where to play and how to win by using AI to enable innovative new products, markets and business models.
- Fortified trust: Securing a business from risks such as fraud and cyber, and improving quality and consistency while enabling greater transparency to enhance brand trust.
Deloitte's "State of AI in the Enterprise, 3rd Edition" study found that 74% of businesses are still in the AI experimentation stage with a focus on modernising their data for AI and building AI expertise through an assortment of siloed pilot programs and proofs-of-concept, but without a clear vision of how all the pieces fit together. By contrast, only 26% of businesses are focused on deploying high-impact AI use cases at scale, which is where AI can create real value.
"While AI adoption rates and maturity vary widely across industries, AI is driving new levels of efficiency and performance for businesses of all sizes," said Irfan Saif, U.S. AI co-leader, Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory, and principal, Deloitte & Touche LLP. "Organisations have the opportunity to unlock the full potential of AI when they embrace it and deploy it at scale throughout their enterprise."
