First mover advantage will be significant for those that deploy AI at scale

ORGANIZATIONS understand the value of artificial intelligence (AI), and in the past 12 months, many, if not most, have attempted to deploy AI in one way or another. According to a recent forecast by IDC, spending on AI systems is forecasted to reach US$97.9 billion in 2023, more than 2.5 times the US$37.5 billion that is expected to be spent in 2019. IDC's analysis reveals that spending on AI systems is currently dominated by the retail and banking industries, followed by discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services. Of course, spending on AI is growing rapidly in the media industry as well as among federal/central governments. Despite the spending, it seems as though a majority of the organizations are running AI projects in pilots and are unable to scale them up effectively.