The Gartner Foundation for Global Studies and Research believes that the great hype created by AI technologies and the great interest in them push software manufacturers to constantly enhance the role of artificial intelligence and its practices within the strategies of their products, which leads to an increase in the enthusiasm of these companies and thus more confusion and related issues.
Analysts at Gartner expect that artificial intelligence technologies will spread significantly and be used in almost all upcoming products and software.
The company pointed out that the term artificial intelligence was not among the 100 most searched terms on its website in January of 2016, but by May 2017, this term ranked seventh, which indicates the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence science and the interest of Gartner customers in understanding the best ways in which artificial intelligence technologies can be employed within their digital business strategies. Gartner expects artificial intelligence to become one of the top 5 investment priorities for more than 30% of IT managers by 2020.
Jim Harry, vice president of research at Gartner, said: “As artificial intelligence technologies increase the hype cycle, many software companies are looking to get their share of these technologies, which have been very popular in recent years. Artificial intelligence technologies offer a huge potential, but unfortunately, most manufacturing companies focus on marketing their AI-based products as the main goal, instead of focusing primarily on the needs of customers, the volume of potential, and the value they can get when using these products,” he said.
The term artificial intelligence refers to those intelligent systems that can change their behaviors without being programmed directly by relying on the data collected, the analysis of usage processes and many other observations that are recorded and learned from.
With the emergence of great fears that artificial intelligence technologies and practices will replace the human workforce, artificial intelligence technologies and self-learning machines are already doing a lot of tasks, and the capabilities of these intelligent technologies and systems are expected to surpass human capabilities to a large extent. In fact, machines can do some tasks better and faster than humans, and if we program and train machines appropriately, we can get impressive results and great achievements through cooperation between humans and machines compared to what these machines can achieve independently.
To take advantage of the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence technologies, IT providers need to understand how to respond to three main issues:
1-the inability of companies wishing to provide artificial intelligence technologies to distinguish their solutions and uniqueness leads to confusion and delays in purchasing decisions by companies consuming these technologies: the large numbers of startups and manufacturing companies that claim to provide artificial intelligence products without any real ability to uniqueness, lead to confusion for consumer companies. More than 1,000 software and platform manufacturers claim to be suppliers of artificial intelligence technologies or that they use artificial intelligence systems in their products.
Similar to the phenomenon of “green washing”, according to which companies exaggerate the suitability of their products and businesses to the environment to achieve greater commercial profits, the phenomenon of “artificial intelligence washing” and its practices have become widespread among many IT manufacturing companies that make empty promises by adding artificial intelligence labels to their products very randomly, according to the Gartner studies and Research Foundation. This widespread use of the phenomenon of “artificial intelligence washing” leads to real consequences that cause a decline in investment rates in this cutting-edge technology.
Manufacturers wishing to strengthen trust ties with consumer enterprises should focus on building a set of case studies with measurable results that can be achieved using artificial intelligence technologies. Commenting on this, Harry said, "Companies should use the term artificial intelligence very wisely in their marketing and sales materials. “ Business owners should focus on what clearly distinguishes their companies from other companies in the field of artificial intelligence and what their company's technologies can provide solutions to the sector's problems,” he said.
2-less complex and proven machine learning capabilities can address many end-user needs: advanced and complex artificial intelligence technologies such as “deep learning” are becoming widely used as resonant terms, but at the same time, they hide the real value of clearer and proven approaches. The Gartner Foundation recommends that companies use the most simplified approach instead of relying on the latest and most complex artificial intelligence technologies.
3-lack of corporate skills to evaluate, build, and deploy artificial intelligence solutions: More than half of the participants in the Gartner AI strategy developments Survey 2017 indicated that the lack of employee skills was the biggest challenge for them in terms of adopting artificial intelligence technologies in their companies.
The survey also concluded that companies are currently seeking artificial intelligence solutions that help enhance decision-making capabilities and develop automation processes as well. And if given the opportunity, most business owners would rather buy ready-made AI solutions than try to build solution packages that are particularly suitable for them.
Harry said: "software manufacturers should focus on providing solutions to the issues and problems faced by the business sector instead of seeking to provide the best and most advanced technologies “ We should also highlight AI solutions that help address skills shortages and how they can be used to add value faster than just building custom AI solutions and using them within companies, " he added.