APAC businesses play catch up in AI adoption

Three-quarters of APAC businesses are committed boost AI spending, even though only 8% have actually implemented industrialised AI in their operations to date.

Businesses in Asia Pacific are ramping up their investments in artificial intelligence (AI) in 2023 after lagging behind peers in the past two years, according to a new study by International Data Corporation (IDC).

IDC said about 76% of APAC firms are now leveraging AI in their operations this year which was nearly double the level of integration in 2021 and 2022, when only 39% of companies do so.

“Looking ahead to 2023, there is an anticipated substantial increase in investment for AI/ML (machine learning) solutions across all APJ (Asia Pacific including Japan) countries,” the market intelligence provider said in the report commissioned by Dataiku.

IDC expects companies based in Japan and Southeast Asia are likely to see the largest budget increases as they prioritise integration of AI technologies into their operations. Businesses in China, Australia and Korea are also reporting ramped up spending in AI and ML solutions.

Better employee productivity, cost reduction, efficient operations, improved risk management and generation of new revenue streams were the top factors driving the increased AI investment plans this year.

“Organizations have benefited from AI investments in providing superior customer experience, accelerating new product development, and strengthening sustainability initiatives,” it added.

Despite the commitment to embrace tech in their operations, the study showed only 8% of the companies have successfully implemented industrialised AI or ML processes within their operations, up from just 2% in 2021.

The majority of companies, however, are actively seeking ways to accelerate AI industrialisation.

IDC traced their struggles to “poor selection/prioritization of business-relevant use cases, inability to leverage scalable and highly performant AI/ML solutions, as well as security and compliance concerns.”