Technology

AI adoption growing but growth may be too fast, reveals survey

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March 11, 2021

One good thing about the pandemic is that artificial intelligence adoption is accelerating, but a KPMG study states the growth may be too fast.

Yet business leaders are confident AI can solve some tough challenges, such as pandemic infection tracking and vaccine deployment, according to a press release on the study.

In the study, Thriving in an AI World, high numbers of business leaders from the following industries report AI is at least moderately functional in their organizations, including those in industrial manufacturing (93%), financial services (84%), tech (83%), retail (81%), life sciences (77%), healthcare (67%) and government (61%).

Several industries saw a significant increase from last year's report: financial services (37-percentage point increase), retail sector (29-percentage point increase) and tech sector (20-percentage point increase).

"Leaders are experiencing COVID-19 whiplash, with AI adoption skyrocketing as a result of the pandemic. But many say it's moving too fast. That's probably because of current debate surrounding the ethics, governance and regulation of AI. Many business leaders do not have a view into what their organizations are doing to control and govern AI and may fear risks are developing," Traci Gusher, principal of artificial intelligence, KPMG, said in the release.

Half of business leaders in industrial manufacturing (55%), retail and tech (49% in each) believe AI is moving faster than it should in their industry.

Business leaders from both small (88%) and large (80%) companies say AI technology helped their company during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Business leaders across industries believe the Biden administration will do more to help advance the adoption of AI in their enterprise: industrial manufacturing (90%), tech (88%), retail (85%), financial services (82%), life sciences (81%), government (79%) and healthcare (73%).

Yet even with the optimism, business leaders are conscious that controls are needed and overwhelmingly believe the government has a role to play in regulating AI technology.

"We are seeing very high levels of support this year across all industries for more AI regulation. One reason for this may be that as the technology advances very quickly, insiders want to avoid AI becoming the 'Wild Wild West.' Additionally, a more robust regulatory environment may help facilitate commerce. It can help remove unintended barriers that may be the result of other laws or regulations, or due to lack of maturity of legal and technical standards," said Rob Dwyer, KPMG principal, advisory, specializing in technology in government.