The report, the Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Spending Guide, said that in 2019, worldwide spending on AI is expected to be $37.5 billion, but that this amount will almost treble by 2023, hitting just a smidgeon less than $100 billion -- $97.9 billion. Not only does the IDC report present good news for AI, it also refers to the machine learning phrase -- or ML, a nod to those who work in the business and are often quite frustrated by the over use of the AI acronym with all its connotations with hype. David Schubmehl, research director at Cognitive/Artificial Intelligence Systems at IDC said: "The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) is occurring in a wide range of solutions and applications from ERP and manufacturing software to content management, collaboration, and user productivity. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are top of mind for most organisations today, and IDC expects that AI will be the disrupting influence changing entire industries over the next decade." The IDC report said that investment in AI will be led by retail and banking industries.

Preparing for the adoption of new technologies is challenging for many large enterprise organisations. That's why savvy CIOs and CTOs seek information and guidance from vendors that can assist them on the journey to achieve digital business transformation. Meanwhile, investment in artificial intelligence (AI) systems and services will continue on a high-growth trajectory. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), spending on AI systems will reach $97.9 billion in 2023 - that's more than two and a half times the $37.5 billion that will be spent in 2019. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for AI in the 2018-2023 forecast period will be 28.4 percent.

Recent surveys, studies, forecasts and other quantitative assessments of the impact and progress of AI highlighted the need to retrain many workers, improving AI's score from F to A on 8th-grade science exam, and the $97.9 billion the AI market will reach in 2023. In the next three years, as many as 120 million workers in the world's 12 largest economies may need to be retrained or reskilled as a result of AI and intelligent automation; only 41% of CEOs surveyed say that they have the people, skills and resources required to execute their business strategies; the time it takes to close a skills gap through training has increased from 3 days on average in 2014 to 36 days in 2018 [IBM] Top drivers for investing in robotics and automation: Reduced cost (80%), improved quality (55%), increased productivity (54%), improved capabilities of robots (54%). "I was at MIT for another fifteen years after I graduated…twenty years after I went and asked to do my bachelor's thesis [with Victor Zue on speech recognition], Siri comes out… twenty years ago, we [wanted to] have a device where you can talk to it and it gives you answers and twenty years later there it was. So, that, for me, that was a cue that maybe it's time to go where the action is, which was in companies that were building these things. Once you have a large company like Microsoft or Google throwing their resources behind these hard problems, then you can't compete when you're in academia for that space. You know, you have to move on to something harder and more far out… So, I joined Microsoft to work on Cortana…"--T.J. Hazen The worldwide market for AI systems will reach $97.9 billion in 2023, up from $37.5 billion in 2019.

The next four years could see companies double their spend on artificial intelligence (AI) as real-world applications of the technology gather pace. Automated customer service agents, threat intelligence and prevention systems, and sales process recommendation and automation will dominate spend. That's based on a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) that states that spend on AI solutions will reach US$97.7 billion in 2023, more than double that of the US$37.5 billion estimated in 2019. The figure would represent a compound annual growth rate of 28.4 percent over the period. David Schubmehl, the research director at IDC in charge of Cognitive/Artificial Intelligence systems said; "The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) is occurring in a wide range of solutions and applications from ERP and manufacturing software to content management, collaboration, and user productivity. "Artificial intelligence and machine learning are top of mind for most organizations today, and IDC expects that AI will be the disrupting influence changing entire industries over the next decade." Banking and retail sectors will lead the shift to AI. According to the report, each of these industries will invest more than US$5 billion in 2019. In the retail sector, nearly half of the spending on technology will go towards automated customer service agents, expert shopping advisors, and product recommendation systems. On the other hand, the banking industry is set to ramp up spend on automated threat intelligence and prevention system, as well as fraud analysis and investigation system. Significant investments would also be made in discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services. The fastest industries to grow in terms of spending would be the media industry and governments with a five-year CAGR of 33.7 percent and 33.6 percent respectively. According to Marianne D'Aquila, Research Manager at IDC Customer Insight & Analysis, said: "Strategic decision-makers across all industries are now grappling with the question of how to effectively proceed with their AI journey.

Worldwide spending on artificial intelligence (AI) systems is forecast to reach US$35.8 billion in 2019, an increase of 44.0% over the amount spent in 2018. With industries investing aggressively in projects that utilise AI software capabilities, the IDC Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Systems Spending Guide expects spending on AI systems will more than double to $79.2 billion in 2022 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.0% over the 2018-2022 forecast period. Spending will be led by the retail industry where companies will invest $5.9 billion this year on solutions such as automated customer service agents and expert shopping advisors & product recommendations. Banking will be the second largest industry with $5.6 billion going toward AI-enabled solutions including automated threat intelligence and prevention systems and fraud analysis and investigation systems. Discrete manufacturing, healthcare providers, and process manufacturing will complete the top 5 industries for AI systems spending this year.

There's been a significant increase in enterprise investment on technologies that analyse, organise, access, and provide advisory services that are based on use cases for unstructured data. In fact, worldwide spending on cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI) systems will reach $19.1 billion in 2018 - that's an increase of 54.2 percent over the amount spent in 2017. With industries investing aggressively in projects that utilise cognitive and AI software capabilities, International Data Corporation (IDC) now forecasts cognitive and AI spending will grow to $52.2 billion in 2021 and achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46.2 percent over the 2016-2021 forecast period. "Interest and awareness of AI is at a fever pitch. Every industry and every organisation should be evaluating AI to see how it will affect their business processes and go-to-market efficiencies," said David Schubmehl, research director at IDC. IDC has estimated that by 2019, 40 percent of digital transformation initiatives will use AI services and by 2021, 75 percent of enterprise applications will use AI.