2017 Artificial Intelligence Research Report

Key points:

• 81% of IT companies are investing or planning to invest in artificial intelligence (AI).
• Cowen predicts that artificial intelligence will take human productivity to a new level, and Microsoft will be at the forefront.
• Digital marketing or marketing automation, Salesforce automation (CRM) and data analysis will become the three most mature application areas of artificial intelligence.
• According to angel.co, there are more than 2,200 AI startups, of which more than 50% were founded in the last two years.
• Cowen sees three companies -- Salesforce ($CRM), Adobe ($ADBE), and ServiceNow ($NOW) -- as having the strength to deliver and benefit from AI services.

The above views come from a research report on artificial intelligence by Cowen - "Artificial Intelligence: The Golden Age of Data Science".

The report is based on interviews with 146 AI researchers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists, and includes a rough survey methodology. This report does not represent the global adoption trends of AI, data engineering, and machine learning (ML), but it does reflect the direction of these fields today and in the future. Cowen believes that the AI ​​market is still in its early stages, and many CIOs are eager to invest in AI-related startups. Timing of listing, user feedback, product positioning, and value positioning are the most critical factors for AI solutions to gain market momentum.

The main contents of the report include the following points.

• Digital marketing or market automation, Salesforce automation (CRM) and data analysis will become the three most mature application areas of artificial intelligence. User self-service, EPR, human resource management (HRM) and e-commerce are potential application areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The figure below shows some of the areas in the software industry with the greatest potential for adopting artificial intelligence and machine learning.

• 81% of IT companies are investing or planning to invest in artificial intelligence. The report shows that CIOs are authorized to integrate artificial intelligence into IT systems. Among them, 43% are conducting evaluations and POCs, and 38% have already invested and plan to make additional investments. The following figure shows the profile of companies that are ready to invest in machine learning and artificial intelligence projects.

• Market forecasts vary, but the trend of explosive growth will not change. IDC predicts that the cognitive systems and artificial intelligence market (including hardware and services) will grow from $8 billion in 2016 to $47 billion in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 55%. Software applications account for $18 billion, software platforms account for $5 billion, and services and hardware account for $24 billion. IBM claims that cognitive computing has a $2 trillion market, of which health sciences account for $200 billion. Tractica predicts that direct and indirect artificial intelligence applications will grow from $1.4 billion in 2016 to $59.8 billion in 2025, with a CAGR of 52%.

• According to CBInsights, the number of financial transactions for AI startups has increased tenfold in the past six years, from 67 in 2011 to 698 in 2016. Accenture claims that AI startups have increased 20-fold since 2011, with major sectors including FinTech, health, transportation, and retail e-commerce. The following chart shows the establishment of AI companies in each year from 2011 to 2016.

• It is predicted that by 2025, algorithm-based trading, image recognition and patient data processing will also become major AI application areas. Tractica predicts that in the next eight years, predictive maintenance and content distribution on social media will become the fourth or fifth largest profit source for AI applications. The following figure compares the top ten application areas in terms of global profits.

• Predictions that machine learning will generate the most profits have attracted a lot of capital to various fields of artificial intelligence. According to Venture Scanner, machine learning has grown by $3.5 billion so far (from more than 400 companies), far exceeding the growth of natural language processing, which has only grown by $1 billion (more than 200 companies). Venture Scanner believes that machine learning applications and machine learning platforms are two relatively young markets that will have great breakthroughs in the future.

• Cowen predicts that enterprises will adopt intelligent application stacks on a large scale as IT departments move from systems of record to systems of intelligent applications. Today's intelligent applications are defining the future of enterprise software step by step, and the speed will increase. Cowen predicts that it will become the norm to add machine learning algorithms to enterprise applications to provide predictive insights for the entire value chain of the enterprise. Enterprise applications have the potential to optimize discounts, prices and purchase recommendations based on real-time data, thereby changing sales and purchasing behaviors.

• According to angel.co, there are more than 2,200 AI startups, more than 50% of which were founded in the last two years. Machine learning-based applications and deep learning neural networks are attracting a large influx of corporate capital.
• 40% of Accenture's analytical applications use machine learning, and this number may rise to 80%. Cowen believes that Accenture is still in the early stages of adopting artificial intelligence for its corporate clients. Accenture predicts that the artificial intelligence market will grow exponentially and will reach a scale of 400 billion by 2020. Their clients are trying to use artificial intelligence to redefine their business strategies and models.

Source: Infoq