Only 16% of firms capable of successfully scaling AI says Accenture report
Only some 16% of companies know how to successfully deploy large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives, according to new report by Accenture, the Dublin-headquartered professional services giant. Maintaining that while many companies implement pilot programmes, their success in scaling up tends to be limited, Bob Berkey, managing director of Accenture Applied Intelligence, said such businesses often find themselves stuck at the proof of concept factory (POC) stage, endlessly conducting AI experiments with a low scaling success rate and a minimal return on investment.
Looking to determine how the adoption of AI can be optimized, Accenture conducted interviews with 1,500 C-level executives across 16 industries and identified three key development phases for such systems – proof of concept factory, strategic scaling and industrialization. It also found that those companies that had successfully scaled AI saw an average increase of 32% across three key metrics – the enterprise value / revenue ratio, the price / earnings ratio and the price / sales ratio. Berkey also noted that moving to the industrialized stage facilitated competitive differentiation, which, in turn, led to better financial outcomes. The report concluded by urging businesses to master data management, consider AI a team sport and to focus securing the investment required to reach the industrialization stage.
