Dive Brief:
- Most businesses, 9 in 10, are broadly exploring generative AI, from pilots to partial deployments and widescale adoption, a Capgemini survey of 1,100 executives published Monday found. Just 6% are holding off.
- IT, risk management and logistics were the most common adoption routes for generative AI, closely followed by sales and customer operations, finance and HR.
- Generative AI adoption gave organizations small but tangible bumps in productivity, CX, operational efficiency and sales. Organizations, on average, said their productivity improved 7.8% while customer engagement was up 6.7%.
Dive Insight:
Businesses are eager to reap the rewards from generative AI adoption, as workplace usage and deployments increase. However, a laundry list of maintenance tasks, vendor pleas for speedy adoption and digital transformation goals have clouded short-term progress.
Fewer than half of organizations have documented policies detailing usage, access and security of data for generative AI, according to Capgemini. More than two-thirds are concerned about bias in models leading to reputational harm and poor customer experiences. A lack of clarity around model fairness and underlying training data also raises questions.
Still, hope remains.
Nearly three-quarters of executives across sectors say generative AI will drive revenue and innovation, up from 60% last year, according to the Capgemini survey.
Greater productivity gains are also expected. More than 4 in 5 executives intend to integrate AI agents within the next three years, enabling the tools to generate work emails, code and analyze data.
Bullish businesses are increasing investments in generative AI as executives chart a course for next year. But executives are grappling with how to measure success and avoid wasteful spending. As the technology commands a larger percentage of budgets, the push for CIOs to reach ROI will grow as well.
