A joint study by MIT and Australian telco Telstra has found that just 9% of companies have begun adopting AI technologies, even though 78% regard the nascent technology as a competitive opportunity in their sector,
The Telstra International and MIT Technology Review Insights study found that six out of ten businesses agree that generative AI will disrupt their industry substantially over the next five years, but only 8% of those surveyed saw this as a threat.
For the study, MITTR polled 300 business leaders across Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and Europe on how their organisations are implementing—or planning to implement—generative AI technologies, along with the barriers to effective deployment.
Most hope to become disruptors: 65% say their businesses are actively considering new and innovative ways to use generative AI to unlock hidden opportunities from data.
But despite the hype last year, 2023 was still slow for adoption rates. 76% of companies said they had tested gen AI in some form, but less than 10% adopted the technology widely, while those who did implement it mainly used it to automate existing non-essential tasks. Reasons previously cited as hampering adoption includes challenges around data management and regulation.
David Williams, managing director of EMEA at Telstra International, said: “There are clearly great expectations around how game-changing generative AI could be, with an overwhelming majority of leaders suggesting they see it more as a competitive opportunity than a threat.
“However, this research highlights an important shift as executives work to address the underlying challenges with deployment, before the hype around generative AI hype begins to translate into more impactful and meaningful ways.”
This year could be key for adoption, however, with respondents expecting the number of functions or general purposes where they will seek to deploy generative AI to more than double this year. Politicians across the globe are also looking to position their respective countries as leaders in AI, with regulation expected to be fleshed out in the coming months.
“To unlock the transformative capabilities that will separate the leaders from the followers across any given sector, executives will need to start building end-to-end capabilities that allow them to handle large datasets, accurately contextualise the data for business value and ensure the responsible and ethical application of AI,” Williams advised.
