A decade of big data investments, combined with cloud scalability, the rise of more cost effective processing and the introduction of advanced tooling, has catapulted machine intelligence to the forefront of technology investments. No matter what job you have, your operation will be AI powered within five years and machines may be doing your job in the future. Artificial intelligence is being infused into applications, infrastructure, equipment and virtually every aspect of our lives. AI is proving to be extremely helpful at controlling vehicles, speeding medical diagnoses, processing language, advancing science and generally raising the stakes on what it means to apply technology for business advantage. But business value realization has been a challenge for most organizations because of a lack of skills, complexity of programming models, immature technology integration, sizable up front investments, ethical concerns and lack of business alignment. Mastering AI technology and a focus on features will not be a requirement for success in our view. Rather, figuring out how and where to apply AI to your business will be the crucial gate.

These conclusions are drawn from ETR's most recent October survey, the demographics of which are highlighted below. Bradley highlights the critical aspects of the October survey demographics. The fourth calendar quarter is often the most productive for vendors as buyers tend to spend later in the year both to lock in year-over-year budget comparisons and to get ready for the following January's project push. Having said that, it's not uncommon for ETR's October survey data to show softness relative to first-half expectations. Nonetheless, as the graphic below shows, aggregate Net Score projections for Q4 2020 are the lowest in the multi-year history of ETR's survey.