AI Will Be Ubiquitous in 2020 but Overhyped in 2017 – Gartner

News Analysis Sarah Thomas, Director, Women in Comms 7/18/2017

Artificial intelligence will be baked into nearly every new software product and service by 2020, but the rush to claim AI integration today is causing confusion, according to a new report from analyst firm Gartner.

While virtually every company across industry verticals is busy today figuring out what AI can do for their business, the hype around it is causing many to jump the gun on building and marketing AI-based products, rather than truly understanding them and their value first, Gartner Inc. says, noting that AI didn't crack its top 100 search terms on gartner.com in January 2016 but was number seven by May 2017. (See Is IBM's Watson Overhyped & Soon to Be Outdone?)

That said, by 2020, the firm expects it to be a top five investment priority for more than 30% of CIOs.

The various forms of AI are attracting equal parts interest -- for their potential to automate processes, simplify complex tasks, improve security and more -- and fear over the potential to displace jobs or even lives. (See Will AI Create More Jobs Than It Destroys?)

For more on artificial intelligence in the world of telecom, visit the dedicated automation content page here on Light Reading.

As it relates to telecom and enterprise, the threats are a little less existential, and AI is seen as augmenting humans' work rather than displacing it. Gartner defines AI as the "systems that change behaviors without being explicitly programmed, based on data collected, usage analysis and other observations." It identifies three things that tech providers need to understand in order to move beyond the hype and make AI work for them:

Build a collection of case studies with quantifiable results achieved using AI in order to differentiate from the more than 1,000 vendors that are "AI washing," or applying the AI label to liberally and confusing buyers.

Keep it simple and use proven, less complex machine learning capabilities to solve a business challenge rather than using AI just for the sake of it.

Offer solutions to actual business problems like process automation rather than focus on cutting-edge technology. Over half of respondents to a Gartner survey also indicated that a lack of staff skills was a top challenge to adopting AI, so Gartner advises that vendors highlight how their solutions address the skills shortage. (See IBM: AI Needs More Than Just Technology.)

— Sarah Thomas, , Director, Women in Comms