According to Gartner‘s poll surveying executive leaders, the capabilities of generative AI to help create new business solutions are starting to ascend the corporate agenda, with 45 per cent reporting a rise in AI investment in line due to ChatGPT publicity.
While the majority are exploring use cases around the technology, which has been trending since the public release of OpenAI‘s ChatGPT chatbot tool back in November, almost a fifth of respondents (19 per cent) are in pilot or production mode.
What’s more, risks such as misinformation and privacy breaches — recently brought to light by AI steward Dr Geoffrey Hinton upon leaving Google Brain — were said to be outweighed by the benefits of generative AI by 68 per cent of executives surveyed, compared to just 5 per cent believing the opposite to be the case.
“The generative AI frenzy shows no signs of abating,” said Frances Karamouzis, distinguished vice-president analyst at Gartner. “Organisations are scrambling to determine how much cash to pour into generative AI solutions, which products are worth the investment, when to get started and how to mitigate the risks that come with this emerging technology.
“Initial enthusiasm for a new technology can give way to more rigorous analysis of risks and implementation challenges. Organisations will likely encounter a host of trust, risk, security, privacy and ethical questions as they start to develop and deploy generative AI.”
Widespread in-house and external investment from big tech stakeholders like Alibaba, AWS, Google and Microsoft has heated up a global business innovation race regarding artificial intelligence and the wider cloud landscape.
Customer service a key focus
Customer experience or retention was the most common primary focus of generative AI investments, cited by 38 per cent of respondents.
Meanwhile, just 17 per cent indicated cost optimisation as the primary purpose of exploration, despite ongoing economic uncertainty.
Karamouzis added: “Autonomous business, the next macrophase of technological change, can mitigate the impact of inflation, talent shortages and even economic downturns.
“CEOs and CIOs that leverage generative AI to drive transformation through new products and business models will find massive opportunities for revenue growth.”
2,544 business executives were surveyed by global research and consulting body Gartner, on the enterprise impact of ChatGPT and generative AI, as part of its webinar series in March and April 2023.
Related:
Using generative AI to understand customers — Generative AI seems poised to transform IT from co-writing code through to enhancing cybersecurity but one of its most profound uses could be how it is used to understand customers.
What ChatGPT means for developers — Will ChatGPT replace software developers? Or will it make their jobs more enjoyable by doing the heavy lifting when it comes to writing boilerplate code, debugging and testing? Find out here.
