AI adoption may be steadily rising, but a closer examination shows that most enterprise companies may not be quite ready for the big time when it comes to artificial intelligence. Recent data from Palo Alto, California-based AI unicorn SambaNova Systems, for example, shows that more than two-thirds of organizations think using artificial intelligence (AI) will cut costs by automating processes and using employees more efficiently. But only 18% are rolling out large-scale, enterprise-class AI initiatives. The rest are introducing AI individually across multiple programs, rather than risking an investment in big-picture, large-scale adoption. That will create an increasing amount of distance between companies that are AI leaders and innovators and those that fall behind, said Marshall Choy, senior vice president of product at SambaNova, which offers custom-built dataflow-as-a-service (and won VentureBeat's AI Innovation Award for Edge AI in 2021). Companies that are more mature in AI and able to invest in large-scale adoption will reap the rewards, he told VentureBeat, while the ones introducing AI across multiple programs will suffer from information and insight silos.

The heist at the center of the 2018 ensemble comedy movie Ocean's 8 required the protagonists to switch valuable jewels for 3-D-printed copies. "Replicators," which generate food or tools from basic raw materials, have been a staple of science fiction in film and TV for generations. Yet while Hollywood has been quick to seize on the potential of additive manufacturing (AM), these technologies have been slow to find their blockbuster applications in real-world manufacturing. Compared with traditional production approaches, AM technologies offer four potential sources of value. First, their ability to generate almost any 3-D shape allows designers the freedom to create parts that perform better or cost less than conventional alternatives.

Infosys Ltd's embrace of automation and artificial intelligence technologies to boost employee productivity is taking longer than expected. India's second-largest software services exporter now expects the related productivity boost to reflect in a meaningful way only from April 2017. Chief executive officer Vishal Sikka had told Mint last October that he expected any "meaningful" impact to start reflecting by the end of March 2016. The development underlines the daunting task faced by Sikka, who is trying to put Infosys back on the global software services map and help the firm retain the bellwether tag in India's 146 billion outsourcing sector. Understandably, the theme of large-scale adoption of automation at the employer of more than 194,000 people was central to the US-based Sikka's five review meetings (including one with company's human resources head Kris Shankar) on his day-long trip to Bengaluru last Saturday.