AI to have dramatic impact on business by 2020: TCS - The Economic Times

LONDON: Sixty-eight per cent of organisations use artificial intelligence (AI) for IT functions, but 70 per cent believe AIs greatest impact by 2020 will be in marketing, customer service, finance and HR, a new study said on Wednesday. According to global IT consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), organisations with the greatest financial improvements from AI investments expect three times as many new AI-related roles by 2020 as compared to companies with smallest improvements. "Given the increasing digital disruption across every industry and the public sector, AI should become a key and integrated component of an organisation's strategy," said K Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer of TCS, in a statement. Eighty-four per cent of companies see the use of AI as "essential" to competitiveness, with a further 50 per cent seeing the technology as "transformative". Financial investments in AI are set to rise, as seven per cent of companies each earmarked at least $250 million toward AI in 2016 and two per cent already plan to invest more than $1 billion by 2020, likely looking to gain a competitive advantage as early adopters, the findings showed.