The second wave of enterprise artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) adoption is building, and is expected to crest in 2021, as many organizations increased and accelerated their investments in tools and people. That was one of the unmistakable conclusions of our 2021 enterprise trends in machine learning report: 83% of the companies we surveyed said their AI/ML budgets had increased year-over-year, and we found that the average number of data scientists they employ has increased by 76% year-over-year. These changes came even as many organizations tightened their overall spending and refocused their strategic priorities amidst all of 2020's disruption and uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many organizations have begun to understand just how critical ML is to remaining competitive in uncertain and rapidly evolving conditions. When we ran a separate survey during the summer of 2020 to find out how businesses adapted to the pandemic's impacts, it revealed a renewed sense of urgency around AI/ML investments: 43% of respondents said that AI/ML mattered "way more" to their business than they'd previously realized.

This is a truly momentous time for machine learning in the enterprise, with investments soaring and a growing number of use cases that can create tangible business value. Organizations are still struggling with important phases of the AI/ML lifecycle. One particular challenge stands out: governance. A lack of robust governance doesn't just limit the potential success of your AI/ML initiative; it could put your entire business in peril as well. That was one of our major findings in Algorithmia's "2021 Enterprise Trends in Machine Learning" report.

The damage from pandemic-induced lockdowns, office and school closures and consumer retrenchment continue to reverberate through the economy. As the crisis drags into its seventh month, it has left businesses facing hard choices in adjusting to what now seems like many permanent changes. Required actions to address the COVID-19 crisis can be divided into three major stages: Respond, Recover and Thrive. These three stages are interspersed with two additional interim stages, and culminate in a long-term operating environment we call the'next normal'. The early months were focused on business survival through a series of reactionary changes, which was followed by mid-term operational stabilization in a world with diminished demand, continued socio-political restrictions and unpredictable events.