Amid Economic Uncertainty, New Rackspace Technology Survey Finds Organizations Turning to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technologies to Do More
February 28 2023 - 10:05AM
A new survey of 1,420 global IT leaders by
Rackspace
Technology® (NASDAQ: RXT), a
leading end-to-end, multicloud technology solutions company finds
that a growing number of organizations – 69% – rank artificial
intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) as a high priority for
their organizations, an increase of 15 percentage points as
compared to 2021. The study polled IT professionals across
industries, including financial services, manufacturing, retail,
hospitality, government, and healthcare to understand the dynamics
of AI/ML uptake amid growing economic uncertainty.
Underscoring the spread of AI/ML across businesses of all
sectors, almost a third of respondents say they only started to
launch AI/ML projects within the past year. In comparison, 17% say
they began implementing AI/ML two years ago, 11% three years ago,
and just 11% five years ago. Though most respondents said AI/ML is
a high priority, only 41% say they have realized substantial
benefits. In comparison, 33% have seen modest benefits, and 26% say
it's too early to tell. Moreover, 62% of respondents say there has
been internal pushback to the degree of adoption of AI/ML within
their organizations.
"As AI and machine learning mature and projects mature, we are
seeing it expand across the organization and become more
ubiquitous, advancing in its importance, visibility, and usage,"
said Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technology Evangelist, Rackspace
Technology. "The fact that almost a third of respondents began
their AI/ML journey within the past year is striking and points to
the fact that these technologies are seen as the key to driving
efficiencies in uncertain economic times. At the same time, the
research clarifies that many organizations are still struggling to
understand or realize the technologies' full benefits of AI/ML, and
many face internal resistance to adoption. All of this traction
doesn't consider the meteoric pace of AI attention in recent weeks
with the explosion of ChatGPT, which has given AI a front-row seat
in every business planning meeting."
Benefits of AI/ML
More organizations are leveraging AI/ML to improve the speed and
efficiency of existing processes, with 67% of organizations saying
it is an area of focus versus just 52% in 2022. Other popular focus
areas include predicting business performance/industry trends (60%)
and reducing risk (53%). In addition, AI/ML is used by
organizations in an increasingly wide variety of contexts,
including hiring/recruiting new talent, increasing understanding of
business and customers, and increasing innovation and productivity.
In addition to internally improving organizations' productivity,
AI/ML has been used by 60% of respondents to meet sustainability
targets by improving worker safety/security, 54% of respondents to
monitor energy consumption management and 47% of respondents for
predictive analytics.
"According to 67% of respondents globally, IT and Business
leaders are using AI/ML to improve business operations with low
innovation due to moving into an uncertain economic climate," said
Nirmal Ranganathan, Chief Architect, Data & AI, Rackspace
Technology. "We see customers use AI/ML to build intelligent search
capabilities to improve employee efficiencies, reduce manual
processes by adopting intelligent document processing and improve
customer experience through customer engagement solutions.
Innovation through AI/ML is rocket fueling the consumer space with
the mainstream adoption of Generative AI technologies."
Progress and Challenges
The principal barriers to organizations' ability to effectively
draw actionable insights from AI/ML include the inability to
collate, structure, and integrate data meaningfully and the need
for more capabilities or talent to manage data effectively. 82% of
respondents say they have tried recruiting employees with AI/ML
skills in the past 12 months, while 86% have grown their AI/ML
workforce in the past 12 months. In many cases, AI/ML replaces work
formerly performed by humans, with 62% of respondents saying that
AI/ML implementation has led to a reduced headcount within their
organization.
"Organizations that are struggling with AI/ML also tend to be
organizations that have immature data cultures, low levels of data
literacy, and poor data governance structures because any AI/ML
project is only as good as the data being used," added Ben
Blanquera, VP, Evangelist, and Senior Architect, Rackspace
Technology. "For more projects to be successful and for
organizations to derive long-term value, there needs to be a focus
on data quality. For some companies, this may mean rethinking their
entire data governance approach."
Trust in AI/ML
Despite data concerns and internal resistance, trust in the
output of AI/ML projects remains high among IT decision-maker
respondents,
with 73% saying they have confidence in
the answers provided by AI/ML. 72% say sufficient checks and
balances are in place to avoid negative consequences from using
AI/ML, while 80% of respondents do not think AI/ML answers require
additional human interpretation.
Survey Methodology
Coleman Parkes Research survey was conducted in
February 2023. Findings are based on the
responses of 1,420 IT decision-makers across
manufacturing/logistics, retail, hospitality/travel, energy,
healthcare/pharma/biomedical, government, media/entertainment, and
financial service sectors in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the
Middle East. Most companies/organizations polled have from 1,000 to
9,999 employees and annual revenue between $50m and $1b.
For additional survey findings, whitepaper, and infographic,
click here.
About Rackspace Technology
Rackspace Technology is a leading end-to-end multicloud
technology services company. We can design, build and operate our
customers' cloud environments across all major technology
platforms, irrespective of technology stack or deployment model. We
partner with our customers at every stage of their cloud journey,
enabling them to modernize applications, build new products and
adopt innovative technologies.
Media ContactNatalie
Silvapublicrelations@rackspace.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
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