How firms can unlock the power of AI in the digital age

In an interaction with Dataquest, Siddhesh Naik, Data, AI & Automation sales leader, IBM Technology Sales, IBM India/South Asia, talks about AI transforming businesses and helping them scale. He also throws light on how firms can unlock the power of AI in the digital age.

Edited excerpts:

Can you share insights, evidence, and data on how AI is transforming businesses and helping them scale?

Around the globe, artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on businesses and society have reached a critical point. With the use of AI, vaccine research has been accelerated, digital health passports have been securely delivered, and speech-to-text transcription has been made available in every online classroom. As of last year, the global AI adoption rate is 35%, up four points from the previous year. While AI adoption was nearly flat over the last year, the "Global AI Adoption Index 2022," conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of IBM, revealed that momentum is shifting as the need for AI has been accelerated by changing business needs because of the pandemic. In fact, 57% of IT professionals in India report that their organization has actively deployed AI in their business, and over a quarter (27%) indicate that their organization is exploring the use of AI.

Lack of skills remains a barrier to adoption, but AI is also helping to rectify labor gaps by automating tasks. In fact, over 50% of IT professionals in India report their company is currently using or considering automation software or tools to drive greater efficiencies in IT operations (52%) and business processes/tasks (53%) and to give valuable time back to employees (55%). Automation use cases are at the forefront as companies use AI to stay competitive and operate more efficiently. Additionally, companies around the world are ready to invest in AI to address their sustainability goals. 48% of IT professionals in India believe AI has the greatest potential to help solve ESG/sustainability challenges such as driving more efficient business processes and daily operations.

AI is being embraced by enterprises primarily for two reasons: improving customer experience and improving operational efficiency. With AI, enterprises are bringing new levels of automation and personalization to customer service; telecom companies are using AI to bring new 5G services to consumers; and breakthrough capabilities for combating fraud in real-time and AI powered automation to drive business processes. In addition, AI is bringing new levels of efficiency to IT operations through automation, and clients are using AI to lower carbon footprints and improve asset management, supply chain management, and environmental intelligence.

The democratization of AI, especially in the wake of the pandemic, and awareness among relevant stakeholders are key drivers of this trend. With new automation capabilities, greater ease of use, and a broader range of well-established applications, artificial intelligence is rapidly bringing benefits to organizations around the world. In fact, NASSCOM recently reported that AI adoption in key sectors could contribute about 60% of AI's potential value-addition of $450-500 billion by 2025.

What are the key challenges to successful AI adoption?

IBM's Global AI Adoption Index 2022 identifies several challenges that businesses face in adopting AI.  The top five things that are hindering successful AI adoption for businesses are limited AI skills, expertise or knowledge (34%), the price is too high (29%), lack of tools or platforms to develop models (25%), projects are too complex or difficult to integrate and scale (24%), and too much data complexity (24%).

Also, a majority organizations haven’t taken key steps to ensure their AI is trustworthy and responsible, such as reducing bias (74%), tracking performance variations and model drift (68%), and making sure they can explain AI-powered decisions (61%). With IBM Watson, IBM is helping organizations overcome barriers to adoption of AI and meet this accelerating demand. In order to scale AI, we are focused on innovations in four critical areas, including natural language processing, trust, automation, and anywhere-ability. In addition to partnering with external think tanks, IBM also works with a diverse set of stakeholders to shape Trusted AI principles for society as a whole. As part of IBM's partnership with academic institutions, Trusted AI is integrated into the core AI curriculum so that the next generation of AI scientists has the right skills

How can firms unlock the power of artificial intelligence in the digital age?

The data is the backbone of today's businesses - it drives innovation and improves competitiveness. Business leaders are beginning to understand the value of their data; they understand the consequences of not fully mobilizing it, but many are still at the beginning of their journey. In spite of best efforts, many organizations are unable to maximize the benefits of their data while ensuring its security. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) comes into play - it can benefit enterprises in three fundamental ways.

Firstly, successful adoption of AI requires a robust data infrastructure in place. The only way to convert data into useful information is through this solid foundation, which allows advanced AI applications to unlock the data's true potential. Another problem is that far too many businesses are unaware of how much data they own. When data is divided into silos, it can be impossible to see not only what data is available, but where it resides as well. AI can also be used to remove this bottleneck. Also, all data sources should be made as simple and accessible as possible for businesses. Here, cloud technologies, such as hybrid data management, play a crucial role. With adoption, all data types can be managed across multiple sources and locations, effectively breaking down the silos and major barriers to AI adoption.

How is IBM lowering the many barriers to entry and making AI more accessible to businesses?

To help organizations address challenges related to data complexity, we propose an approach called a data fabric. A data fabric is a strategy and architectural approach that allows businesses to use the disparate data sources and storage repositories (databases, data lakes, data warehouses) and simplifying data access. IBM Cloud Pak for Data delivers a data fabric architecture that allows an enterprise to connect and access siloed data, across distributed environments without ever having to copy or move it – and with governance and privacy embedded.  The data fabric architecture that is provided by Cloud Pak for Data enables organizations to accelerate data analysis for better, faster insights. Over half (51%) of IT professionals in India report that their company is using a data fabric architecture and 28% indicate that their company is considering using a data fabric architecture.

IBM is helping to meet this accelerating demand for AI and helping organizations overcome the barriers to adoption with IBM Watson. IBM Watson is AI for business. IBM Watson has evolved significantly over the last decade – moving from research, to experimentation, to a scaled set of AI capabilities that run anywhere on Red Hat OpenShift and integrate data scattered across hybrid cloud environments. IBM is also infusing AI capabilities from Watson throughout its hybrid cloud software portfolio. Today, IBM Watson provides cutting-edge AI capabilities for users with a range of AI skills, from business professionals looking to reclaim their time to data scientists, IT and security professionals who are operationalizing AI at scale.

• Capabilities for business users: Watson provides clients with pre-built AI applications that run anywhere like Watson Assistant, Watson Discovery, Planning Analytics with Watson, Cognos Analytics with Watson, IBM OpenPages with Watson or Watson Orchestrate that are targeted at solving a specific business problem, such as customer care, risk management, planning and forecasting, or supply chain management.
• Capabilities for developers and data scientists: Watson provides AI for developers and data scientists with tools like Watson Studio on IBM Cloud Pak for Data to help build and deploy AI anywhere. These tools help an organization collect data, organize data, build AI models that are fair, put AI models into production, and manage those models throughout the entire lifecycle. IBM also provides developer tools that make it easy to incorporate conversation, language, and search into your applications.
• Capabilities for IT Professionals: IBM provides a set of tools that bring AI to IT management. IBM Cloud Paks, AI-powered hybrid cloud software, are designed to accelerate application modernization with pre-integrated data, automation and security capabilities. Watson also ensures reliability and robustness of enterprise security, enterprise data protection and data cataloging.
• Capabilities for Security Professionals: As cyberattacks grow in volume and complexity, IBM is applying AI to help under-resourced security operations analysts stay ahead of threats. IBM Cloud Pak® for Security is an open security platform that can advance a zero trust strategy, take advantage of existing investments and help teams collaborate safely and securely. Recent acquisitions such as ReaQta have furthered IBM’s ability to use AI to identify and mange threats while remaining undetectable to adversaries.