Businesses are investing heavily in the Internet of Things, while remaining cautious about investments in artificial intelligence, a new digital transformation study conducted from Constellation Research reveals. However, the research suggests AI will emerge in 2018 as the predominant area of technological experimentation due to the increasing availability of AI development kits and frameworks.
Nearly half of respondents in the Constellation 2017 Digital Transformation Survey said their organization either had an established IoT strategy with applications in production (19 percent) or have pilot projects underway (28 percent). In contrast, just 25 percent of executives said they were investing in AI.
Digital transformation in the era of AI
Growing demand for the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence is expected to drive large investment in SaaS/cloud and big data technology. Seventy-five percent of respondents said their organization was increasing investment in big data technologies. A full 77 percent of respondents said their organizations would increase investment in SaaS/cloud over the next 12 months, with 45 percent of that total saying the investment would be significantly greater.
Digital business models that hinge on AI and IoT such as “as-a-service” and “mass personalization at scale” require large amounts of data and computing power to execute. In addition, the connections for IoT are in the cloud and AI processing will increasingly rely on cloud-based services. These trends will continue to drive investment in SaaS/cloud and big data technologies.
The Constellation 2017 Digital Transformation Survey asked C-level executives about the priorities of their digital strategy, recent investments in emerging technologies, near- and medium-term goals, and hurdles to initiatives. Constellation received 105 responses to an online survey from respondents with a diverse range of job roles. About 18 percent of respondents self-identified as CEOs, followed by line of business managers (20 percent) and IT managers (16 percent).
