Revenue for AI systems to top $47 billion by 2020 - Information Age

Widespread adoption of cognitive systems and AI across a broad range of industries will drive worldwide revenues from nearly $8 billion in 2016 to more than $47 billion in 2020, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) new Spending Guide. The market for cognitive/AI solutions will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 55.1% over the 2016-2020 forecast period, highlighting the tremendous growth and rate of adoption for these technologies. The guide also revealed that this exponential growth of AI and machine learning technologies is bound to impact the UC industry. While widespread use of AI in the UC industry is still a few years out, AI will slowly start integrating with UC collaboration tools and has the potential to transform the industry over time. "Software developers and end user organisations have already begun the process of embedding and deploying cognitive/artificial intelligence into almost every kind of enterprise application or process," said David Schubmehl, research director, Cognitive Systems and Content Analytics at IDC. "Recent announcements by several large technology vendors and the booming venture capital market for AI startups illustrate the need for organisations to be planning and undertaking strategies that incorporate these wide-ranging technologies. Identifying, understanding, and acting on the use cases, technologies, and growth opportunities for cognitive/AI systems will be a differentiating factor for most enterprises and the digital disruption caused by these technologies will be significant."