We’ve come to rely on AI for so much in our everyday lives. Wayfinding apps, speech-to-text capabilities, facial recognition for unlocking phones — it’s all possible through AI. And while some organizations are getting the most out of the technology’s potential, a new Accenture report found that 63% — a clear majority — are still ‘testing the waters.’
According to Accenture’s new The art of AI maturity report, just 12% of organizations have advanced their AI maturity enough “to achieve superior growth and business transformation.” The report found that these ‘AI Achievers’ can chalk up, on average, 30% of their total revenue to AI.
That said, according to Accenture machine learning models, more AI Achievers will join the ranks with a suggested increase from 12% to 24% by 2024.
What is AI maturity? According to Accenture, AI maturity “measures the degree to which organizations have mastered AI-related capabilities in the right combination to achieve high performance for customers, shareholders and employees.”
What do these AI Achievers do differently? Accenture identified five specific competencies:
- Leadership champions AI as a strategic priority for the entire organization.
- Heavy investment in talent.
- They industrialize AI tools and teams to create a strong AI core.
- Responsible AI design, from the get-go.
- Long- and short-term AI investments are prioritized.
Accenture also included other categories of organizations, as they relate to AI capabilities:
- AI Builders: “show strong foundational capabilities and average differentiation capabilities.”
- AI Innovators: “show strong differentiation capabilities and average foundational capabilities.”
- AI Experimenters: average capabilities in both categories; as mentioned above, they are still testing the waters.
Achievers, Builders, and Innovators together represent 37% of organizations surveyed.
What industries have the most AI maturity? Tech is, little surprise, fairly far ahead of the game. The automotive sector has high hopes for AI-powered autonomous vehicles. Aerospace and defense firms will likely see demand for AI-enabled remote systems. And the life sciences will make use of AI in the development of pharmaceuticals.
At the bottom? Financial services and healthcare have a fairly low AI maturity, largely due to factors like legal/regulatory issues, and lack of AI-trained talent.
AI isn’t new, but suffice to say, there is still a huge amount of room for AI growth, with AI Achievers setting the standards.
“As AI technologies become more prevalent, the future of all businesses is going to look very different,” explains Accenture.
“Some will lead the change, and some will be subjected to it. Those who transform will be the ones whose teams master the art of AI maturity, using cloud as the enabler, data as the driver and AI as the differentiator.”
Explore the full AI Maturity report, including use cases and industry-specific details here.
