All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now. A global survey published today finds nearly a third (31%) of respondents consider the social impact of bias in models to be AI's biggest challenge. This is followed by concerns about the impact AI is likely to have on data privacy (21%). More troubling, only 10% of respondents said their organization has addressed bias in AI, with another 30% planning to do so sometime in the next 12 months. Conducted by Anaconda, whose platform provides access to curated instances of open source tools for building AI models, the survey of 4,299 individuals includes IT and business professionals, alongside students and academics.

Investment in artificial intelligence (AI) has remained strong during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the pace of growth moderating only slightly during 2020 and picking up in 2021 and beyond, according to new research from International Data Corporation (IDC). Global revenues for AI software, hardware, and services are expected to total $156.5 billion in 2020, an increase of 12.3% over 2019. "The pandemic has interrupted the momentum of AI services market growth in nearly all regions," said Jennifer Hamel, research manager, Analytics and Intelligent Automation Services. "However, enterprise demand for AI capabilities to support business resiliency and augment human productivity will sustain double-digit expansion in 2020 even as other discretionary projects experience delays." IDC expects AI hardware (server and storage combined) revenues to reach $13.4 billion in 2020, representing 10.3% year-over-year growth, which is a significant moderation from the prior year when it grew 33.4%.