August 14, 2024
A new report from consultancy Searce claims that organisations in the UK and US are making significant investments in artificial intelligence this year, with almost one in ten decision-makers in the UK (8%) and US (7%) planning to spend more than $25 million. State of AI Report 2024 (registration) is based on a survey of 300 senior technology executives and C-suite executives, including chief artificial intelligence officers, chief data and analytics officers, chief transformation officers, and chief digital officers, at organizations with revenues of $500 million or more. The study examines some of the biggest trends, successes, and challenges facing companies in their AI decision-making, strategy, and execution.
While the study suggests that significant investment is currently being made in AI, concerns remain about the challenges of adopting different forms of the technology, which differ between the UK and US. For US decision-makers, data privacy and security is ranked as the top barrier (20%), while UK decision-makers rank a lack of skilled talent as their top challenge (19%).
Other findings of the report:
- A third of businesses in the UK (31%) and US (35%) are investing in AI to drive business growth.
- The majority (96%) of UK respondents view AI adoption as a key business priority, with most (92%) rating the success rate of their AI initiatives as ‘successful’ and 31% planning to increase AI spending by 26-50%.
- When it comes to the build versus buy debate, more than half (51%) of UK respondents said they purchased solutions and partnered with external service providers to meet their AI needs rather than building or maintaining the solution in-house. The situation was similar in the US, where 57% of respondents said the same.
