AI-powered self-driving cars got kicked to the curb, with the shuttering of Argo AI. Big Tech had a tough time, with earnings wipeouts for Amazon, Microsoft and Google. And Meta's big bet on the metaverse has the company in free fall, at least for now. However, none of that negative-nellie news seems to stop the FOMO – the fear of missing out – at least in the world of AI. This time the hyped-up anxiety is not about autonomous cars (the "not" in the Hot or Not), but generative AI – a suddenly-sexy sector described with words like "miraculous," "transformative" and "a coming-out party" [subscription required].

In recent years, slews of tech professionals have turned their attention to AI, automation and cybersecurity and the benefits they can provide in the enterprise. At IBM's Think 2022 conference, a session titled "Rethinking ITOps with AI and automation" provided insight on the need for digital transformation and the role AI, automation and cybersecurity play in this effort to modernize IT operations. If organizations want to transform and scale to meet today's challenges, AI will need to play a key role in accelerating this, according to the speakers. AI not only automates repetitive tasks so human professionals can focus on innovation and moving forward, but the technology also mitigates contemporary global issues such as supply chain disruption. "I've seen a lot of organizations using AI technology for charting out the whole network of the ecosystem of the supply chain," said Ritu Jyoti, program vice president of AI strategies at IDC's software market research and advisory practice.

The ultimate goal, he said, is to validate and train AI algorithms on large amounts of data, while reducing privacy issues surrounding personal medical information. "More and more…synthetic data is going to overtake and be the way people do AI in the future," Mr. Bhatt said. Anthem, which has been using Amazon.com Inc.'s Amazon Web Services as a cloud provider since 2017, tapped Google Cloud last year for its data analytics and AI capabilities as part of an ongoing effort to become more customer-centric and focus on members' entire healthcare journeys, Mr. Bhatt said. It's a continuing effort that includes Anthem's work with synthetic data. This week, Anthem's shareholders are voting on a proposed rebranding of the company to Elevance Health as part of that same effort.

The global revenues for the artificial intelligence (AI) market, including software, hardware, and services, is forecast to grow 19.6 per cent (on-year) in 2022 to $432.8 billion, according to a new report. The market is expected to break the $500 billion mark in 2023, reports International Data Corporation (IDC). AI solutions are currently focused on business process problems and range from human augmentation to process improvement to planning and forecasting, empowering superior decisioning and outcomes. "Advancements in language, voice and vision technologies, and multi-modal AI solutions are revolutionizing human efficiencies," said Ritu Jyoti, group VP, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation Research at IDC. AI software will see its share of spending decline slightly in 2022 as spending for AI hardware and services grows more quickly. This trend will continue into 2023.

Worldwide revenues for the artificial intelligence (AI) market, including software, hardware and services, is estimated to grow 15.2 per cent (year-over-year) in 2021 to $341.8 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). The market is forecast to accelerate further in 2022 with 18.8 per cent growth and remain on track to break the $500 billion mark by 2024. "However, in terms of growth, AI Hardware is estimated to grow the fastest in the next several years. From 2023 onwards, AI Services is forecast to become the fastest growing category," the report showed. In AI Server market, there were a total of six companies that generated over $500 million each in 2020 - Dell, HPE, Huawei, IBM, Inspur, and Lenovo.

All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now. Companies could spend nearly $342 billion on AI software, hardware, and services in 2021. That's according to the latest edition of IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker, which forecast that the AI market will accelerate in 2022, with 18.8% growth, and remain on track to break the $500 billion mark by 2024. For its report, IDC surveyed over 700 large enterprises across a total of 27 countries and five rest-of regions. While the report suggests the competitive AI landscape remains highly fragmented, 2020 was the year that strengthened the value of enterprise AI, according to IDC's Ritu Jyoti.

IDC analysts recommend that companies develop comprehensive guidelines for ethical artificial intelligence and an ongoing review process. Companies using artificial intelligence should start thinking about ethical AI as make or break, not nice to have, according to IDC research. In a webinar on Thursday, March 4, analysts explained why the lack of guidelines for AI is holding back implementation as well as how companies can address this problem. Analysts Bjoern Stengel, Ritu Jyoti and Jennifer Hamel shared new research at the session, "Increasing Trust and Accountability Through Responsible AI and Digital Ethics." Hamel, a research manager of analytics and intelligent automation services, said that ethical AI is a team sport.

Global spending on artificial intelligence technologies will double to $110 billion by 2024 as AI use grows to bolster the competitiveness and digital transformations of more businesses and other organizations. That's the conclusion of a new IDC Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Guide, which examines AI use, trends and markets over the next four years. AI spending in 2020 is estimated at $50.1 billion, but that figure will more than double as new AI use cases and technology improvements continue, according to the guide. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2019-2024 period will be 20.1%. The biggest AI business drivers include delivering improved customer experiences and helping employees get better at their jobs, according to the guide.

While artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for many years, deployment has been picking up. Between 2017 and 2018, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the percentage of companies embedding at least one AI capability in their business processes more than doubled to 47 percent from 20 percent the year before. Although companies are adopting it, they often lack a clear plan: A recent IDC survey found that of the companies already using AI, only 25 percent had an enterprise-wide strategy on how to implement it. To help navigate that challenge, here's how the four pillars of Google Cloud's Deployed AI vision can reshape your business. For AI to be deployed effectively, it must be focused on a new business problem or unrealized opportunity.

AI is a business disruptor, evidenced by the chaos Amazon brought to retail, Uber brought to taxis and Netflix brought to streaming. The AI solutions the Amazons and Ubers of the world are investing in are the ones that offer open source frameworks, edge computing, facial recognition, predictive maintenance and e-commerce searches. A company that uses AI at its foundation "refers to companies that have a business model where the company would cease to exist if AI did not exist," said Jyoti. Companies that thrive go toe-to-toe with existing competitors as well as next-generation competitors, giving them an advantage when developing end-to-end customer experience. "This is a serious competition based on a transformative business model," she said.