Artificial intelligence to be top investment priority for 30% CIOs by 2020: Gartner

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a buzzword, pushing established software vendors to introduce it into their product strategy, "creating considerable confusion in the process", according to IT researcher Gartner Inc. Gartner Inc, on Tuesday, predicted that by 2020, AI technologies will be virtually pervasive in almost every new software product and service and will be one of the top five investment priorities for more than 30% of CIOs, globally. Gartner defined AI as systems that change behaviors without being explicitly programmed, based on data collected, usage analysis and other observations. The researcher said that in May 2017, the term artificial intelligence was the seventh most popular term on gartner.com, The term did not feature in top 100 search terms back in January 2016. "AI offers exciting possibilities, but unfortunately, most vendors are focused on the goal of simply building and marketing an AI-based product rather than first identifying needs, potential uses and the business value to customers," said Jim Hare, research vice president at Gartner.