Companies Seek Better Products and Decision-Making From Cognitive Tech

Intro: A clear majority of organizations are making seven-figure investments into cognitive technology—with most of this budgeting allocated to IT needs and functions, according to a recent survey from Deloitte. In anticipation of a widespread industry transformation, most companies have no less than six cognitive technologies and deployments underway. Among other benefits, they expect cognitive technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their products while helping them make better decisions, in addition to optimizing internal business operations and enabling workers to spend more time on innovation. A total of 250 executives at companies considered active in cognitive technology took part in the research. Charts for this slide show were provided by Deloitte.

Deloitte reports that 64 percent of companies have invested more than $1 million into cognitive technology. IT needs/functions account for 64 percent of this investment, with the rest going to product development/R&D, customer service, supply chain procurement, service operations and manufacturing.

More than two of five companies are considered in the “fast lane” of cognitive tech and artificial intelligence (AI), meaning they have “jumped in” on deployment, know where to apply these advancements and take at least a partial “do it yourself” approach to developing and integrating them. Nearly one-quarter are considered “waders,” meaning they heavily rely on external vendors for cognitive tech and AI.

Seven of 10 companies have at least three cognitive tech pilots underway. Two-thirds have at least that many deployments in play.

More than three-quarters of survey respondents expect cognitive tech to transform their organization within three years. It should transform their industry within three years, according to 57 percent of respondents.

Nearly three of five respondents said their company is deploying robotic process automation. Statistical machine learning is deployed at 58 percent of organizations.

Deloitte has found that 51 percent of companies are seeking to enhance the features, functions and/or performance of their products via AI. More than two-thirds want to make better decisions from AI.

More than one-third of organizations are deploying AI to optimize internal business operations. The same number want to free up workers to be more creative by automating tasks.

Deloitte found that 58 percent of companies rely upon at least one vendor for proprietary cognitive software. However, 20 percent build their cognitive applications “from scratch.”

When asked about the top challenges of cognitive tech, 47 percent of survey respondents said it’s difficult to integrate cognitive projects with existing processes and systems. The expensive quality of technologies and expertise was cited by 40 percent of respondents.

To take advantage of cognitive tech, 45 percent of survey respondents feel that “minimal” to “substantial” reductions in staffing are required “now.” However, 33 percent anticipate that their organization will need to add new jobs to effectively leverage AI/cognitive tech.