Artificial Intelligence Is Experiencing Growing Pains

Is artificial intelligence ready to move out of the labs and proofs of concept and into the mainstreams of enterprises? Leading industry observers say yes, it's ready -- but organizations may still need some preparation. "We've moved beyond the phase of'Is AI a shiny object?' toward broader mainstream adoption and actual value creation," says Bryce Hall, associate partner with McKinsey, noting that data from a survey of 2,300 executives shows a nearly 25% year-over-year increase in the use of AI in standard business processes. Hall joined McKinsey colleague Michael Chui in a recent podcast Q&A, in which they note that while AI is being widely adopted, much of the work is confined to specific narrow use cases, versus more strategic enterprise-centric adoption. "We're very early in this trend," says Chui. "As much as we're seeing this growth in adoption, less than a third of the companies that we surveyed have deployed AI in multiple businesses or functions."