Almost 90% Executives Have Deployed AI To Enhance Revenue: TCS Study
The TCS AI for Business Study also found that 69% of businesses are more focused on using AI to spur innovation and increase revenue than on productivity improvement and cost optimisation.
Nearly nine in 10 senior business leaders have already deployed artificial intelligence to enhance existing revenue streams or create new ones, a new study by Tata Consultancy Services showed. The TCS AI for Business Study also found that 69% of businesses are more focused on using AI to spur innovation and increase revenue than on productivity improvement and cost optimisation.
Executives are generally positive about AI's impact, with 57% reporting excitement or optimism about its potential impact on businesses. Of the respondents, 45% said up to half their employees will need to use generative AI capabilities to do their job in three years’ time, and another 41% think even more will do so. Most (65%) believed AI would augment and enhance human capabilities, enabling people to focus on higher-value activities that require creativity and strategic thinking.
Sivaraman Ganesan, head, AI.Cloud Business Unit, TCS, said, “When calibrated for accuracy and harnessed responsibly, gen AI makes the computational power of the data, cloud and AI come alive. Add in human ingenuity, and organisations can create a new paradigm for the modern marketplace.”
According to the study, business leaders are less certain about the path to transformation. Only 4% use AI in a way that has transformed their business, and nearly a quarter (24%) haven’t even moved beyond the initial exploratory phase. The top barriers to business success include current corporate IT infrastructure and customer expectations. Nearly three-fourths (72%) also said they don’t have the right metrics to measure the success of AI implementations.
Other key results from the report include:
Executives believed the impact of AI will be greater than or equal to that of the internet (54%) and smartphones (59%).
Corporate functions with the most completed AI projects: finance/comptroller (completion rate of 29%); HR (completion rate of 28%); marketing (completion rate of 28%).
Of the senior executives, 65% said competitive advantage will still come from humans, with their creativity, intuition and strategic thinking augmented by AI.
Around 40% of executives said that they have changes to make to their business before they can take full advantage of AI.
Over half (55%) said they were actively making changes right now to their business or operating models, or to their products and services.
Around 81% highlighted the need for global AI standards and regulations.
Nearly two-thirds of BFSI (64%) and manufacturing (63%) industry executives said they are excited or optimistic about the impact of AI on businesses.
Harrick Vin, chief technology officer, TCS, said, “2023 was a year of exuberance, with every enterprise experimenting with AI/gen AI use cases. We are now entering an era of wide-and-deep enterprise AI adoption. Enterprises, however, are realising that the path to production for AI solutions is not easy, and that building an AI-mature enterprise is a marathon, not a sprint.”
