The promise is there, but AI's limitations are also coming increasingly to the fore, potentially undermining trust and leaving some questioning the real value of the technology. OECD Business and Finance Outlook 2021: AI in Business and Finance says AI has the potential to provide insights, recommendations and efficiencies for sectors ranging from health care to agriculture, but it also can create new risks or reinforce existing risks, including eroding competition, privacy and the right to fair, equal treatment. It's already'transforming' financial services, with financial markets spending up large in 2020 with global spend of more than US$50 billion in AI. But the OECD report says risks include entrenching bias, lack of explainability of financial decisions, introducing new forms of cyber attacks and automating jobs ahead of society adjusting to the changes. "Fewer than two out of five of companies that had made an investment in AI reported business gains."

The Covid-19 pandemic has made RoI on AI redundant. The worldwide adoption of AI has busted the myth that AI requires intensive investment on infrastructure, process changes, and manpower. It has been seen that AI-powered solutions have become the determining factor of an enterprise's survival. Enterprises have realigned their priorities to survive the pandemic. Several start-ups sprang into action and created AI-powered solutions that helped every sector.

Recent surveys, studies, forecasts and other quantitative assessments of the progress of AI highlighted the rapidly increasing expectations regarding the business benefits of AI and the low incidence of business gains so far; the increasing adoption of AI by businesses worldwide and the challenges in its implementation and integration with exiting processes; and how companies respond to AI by both reducing and training their workforce. The report estimated the combined AI spending from large-capitalization financial institutions at more than $150 billion annually. In the past two years, BB&T Corp. has embraced a digital-first approach to plugging in artificial intelligence and robotics into its back-office, customer-service and compliance operations. That should eclipse the 1,281 companies that raised $16.8 billion in all of 2018, according to the 3Q 2019 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor [VentureBeat] "The values of AI designers or the purchasing administrators are not necessarily the values of the bedside clinician or patient. Those value collisions and tensions are going to be sites of significant ethical conflict"--Danton Char, assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at Stanford University Medical Center "I don't yet fully subscribe to the view that the machine is completely autonomous and operates without human intervention. At least as of today, and probably the foreseeable future, the AI machine is just another tool"--Andrei Iancu, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, speaking about recognizing AI systems that develop new products as inventors "If leaders think about AI like a balance sheet, then they're missing the point. You need to get emotional attachment to the disruptive nature that it can bring"--Werner Boeing, CIO, Roche Diagnostics "The major upside for us is driving more engagement….Right behind that is the ability to monetize this and generate incremental revenue for us and for our clubs….This data's going to be hugely valuable"--Dave Lehanski, NHL senior vice president of business development and global partnerships

Recent surveys, studies, forecasts and other quantitative assessments of the progress of AI highlighted the rapidly increasing expectations regarding the business benefits of AI and the low incidence of business gains so far; the increasing adoption of AI by businesses worldwide and the challenges in its implementation and integration with exiting processes; and how companies respond to AI by both reducing and training their workforce. The report estimated the combined AI spending from large-capitalization financial institutions at more than $150 billion annually. In the past two years, BB&T Corp. has embraced a digital-first approach to plugging in artificial intelligence and robotics into its back-office, customer-service and compliance operations. That should eclipse the 1,281 companies that raised $16.8 billion in all of 2018, according to the 3Q 2019 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor [VentureBeat] "The values of AI designers or the purchasing administrators are not necessarily the values of the bedside clinician or patient. Those value collisions and tensions are going to be sites of significant ethical conflict"--Danton Char, assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at Stanford University Medical Center "I don't yet fully subscribe to the view that the machine is completely autonomous and operates without human intervention. At least as of today, and probably the foreseeable future, the AI machine is just another tool"--Andrei Iancu, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, speaking about recognizing AI systems that develop new products as inventors "If leaders think about AI like a balance sheet, then they're missing the point. You need to get emotional attachment to the disruptive nature that it can bring"--Werner Boeing, CIO, Roche Diagnostics "The major upside for us is driving more engagement....Right behind that is the ability to monetize this and generate incremental revenue for us and for our clubs....This data's going to be hugely valuable"--Dave Lehanski, NHL senior vice president of business development and global partnerships

There might be a lot of hype surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). But communications provider AT&T is a believer -- and is transforming its business with the help of these technologies. "Our mission at the chief data office is to data power AT&T through data insights and evolving technologies such as AI and ML," said Kim Keating, vice president of data science at the company. "This allows us to leverage vast amounts of data to provide insights and answers to critical business questions" affecting the company. One are where the company is leveraging these technologies is in selecting retail store formats.

When we talk about so-called emerging or future technologies, artificial intelligence quickly comes to mind. After all, AI is predicted to impact nearly all the jobs in the not-so-distant future. But while many people are fearful about the concept of AI they don't need to be, as Al is not really capable of imitating the human behavior. AI is also not just for large organizations. So let's take a look at the ways we can incorporate AI to efficiently run our business on a small scale.

In the early 1990s, executives and managers welcomed information technology -- databases, PC workstations, and automated systems -- into their offices. They saw the potential for significant business gains. Computers wouldn't just speed up processes or automate certain tasks -- they could upset nearly all business processes and allow executives to rethink operations from the ground up. And so the reengineering movement was born. Powerful machine-learning algorithms that adapt through experience and evolve in intelligence with exposure to data are driving changes in businesses that would have been impossible to imagine just five years ago.