In 2024, artificial intelligence adoption has experienced a remarkable surge across global organizations. The percentage of companies integrating AI into at least one business function has dramatically increased to 72 percent, representing a substantial leap from 55 percent in the previous year. Even more striking is the exponential growth of generative AI, which has been embraced by 65 percent of organizations worldwide. This represents an impressive increase of over 30 percentage points, highlighting the technology's swift transition from an emerging trend to a mainstream business tool.

The adoption rate of artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to rapidly grow in the information technology sector (IT). In 2022, nearly 47 percent of IT executives expected their companies to have widescale adoption in AI in their respective companies.

While artificial intelligence (AI) saw a staggering growth in adoption rates from 2017 to 2018, it has leveled off significantly since 2019. It grew nearly 2.5 times in 2022 compared to its adoption rate in 2017. Much of this can be attributed to AI being more understood as an inherent tool of optimizing business and operations in 2022. It is less amazingly novel and rather an understood factor of value-adding in businesses.

Singapore was the nation with the highest combined value where enterprises were exploring or had actively deployed AI within their business in 2023. China, India, and the UAE were all close behind, with over 80 percent of respondents claiming exploration or deployment of AI. Western countries, in particular European mainland nations such as France, Germany, and Italy, had the highest rate of non-usage or no exploration of AI, though even the U.S. had a similar share of enterprises not engaged with AI. This may reflect the specialized industries that thrive in those countries, needing individualized human skills to operate.

The adoption rate of artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to grow in companies operating in the finance sector from 2022 to 2025. In 2022, nearly half of executives expected their companies to have widescale adoption in AI in their companies. In the 2025, they expected the same ratio would be exceeded for critical implementation of AI.

The adoption rate of artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to gain considerable importance in product development companies worldwide between 2022 and 2025. Currently, companies operating in that sector were mostly reporting limited adoption of AI in their production cycles. Technology executives expected this to change considerably by 2025.

Tech, media, and telecoms industries were the most diligent adopters of AI in 2024, with some 44 percent of respondents using AI in their business. AI was most used in the product and/or service development functions, with only those working in consumer goods and retail using it less than 20 percent.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is heavily used for service operations and strategy and corporate finance, with nearly all industries reporting around 20 percent usage of AI in these functions. The greatest use of AI in product making was in the risk industry, with over 38 percent of respondents using AI in 2022. The use of AI in manufacturing and marketing is low, as these can require individual human instincts and so lend themselves less easily to AI applications.

AI adoption isn’t easy

It is no easy task to adapt a new technology of such widespread use as AI. There are numerous pitfalls and problems, both from the use of the technology itself but also from actions by outside agents causing issues. Companies considered cybersecurity to be chief among the risks being mitigated when adapting AI in 2023. In addition, regulatory compliance was a considerable challenge, stemming from a strong need to respect information privacy among users.

Employment faces steep headwinds

AI will have a considerable effect on the labor needs of nations worldwide. Of the many professions, office and administrative support are facing the greatest risk of automation. These are linear and formulaic positions, with many of their duties delegable to advanced programs.

The adoption rate of artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to grow in companies operating in supply chains and manufacturing industries from 2022 to 2025. In 2022 over a third of executives expected their companies to have a widescale adoption of AI in their companies.

According to a global 2023 survey, 43 percent of company CEOs were planning to explore options for the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the future, as opposed to 39 percent of CMOs stating the same. An equal amount of CEOs and CMOs - 19 percent - were planning to adopt AI immediately but only across some business units/operations.

During a 2023 survey conducted among professionals in the United States, it was found that 37 percent of those working in advertising or marketing had used artificial intelligence (AI) to assist with work-related tasks. Healthcare, however, had the lowest rate of AI usage with only 15 percent of those asked having used it at work. The rate of adoption in marketing and advertising is understandable, as it is the industry that most weaves together art and creative mediums in its processes.

Generative AI linked to education

Those positions that require a higher level of education are most at risk of being automated with generative AI in the U.S. This is simply because those jobs that require less formal education are rarely digital positions and are more reliant on physical labor. Jobs that require tertiary education, however, are still the least likely to be automated overall, even with the added influence of generative AI.

ChatGPT has competitors

While the OpenAI-developed ChatGPT is the most well-known AI program and the currently most advanced large language model, - other competitors are catching up. While just over half of respondents in the U.S. had heard of or used ChatGPT, nearly half of respondents had also heard of or used Bing Chat. Google’s Bard was slightly behind, with only around a third of Americans having heard of or used it.

Combined, China had the highest rate of exploring and deploying artificial intelligence (AI) globally in 2022. It was followed closely by India and Singapore. This lead was also marked when accounting only for the deployment of AI in organizations in China, with India following. Both nations had a nearly 60 percent deployment rate. When accounting only for exploration, however, the leading nations were Canada and the United States.

AI in Europe on the rise

Europe contains an exceptionally vibrant technology sector. This is particularly true in the field of AI, where funding for startups specializing in this high-demand technology stood at more than 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in late 2022. Many of Europe’s major economies are leaders in the exploration and deployment of AI and are ahead of the global curve.

Opportunities for early adopters

Those businesses that begin using AI early will find it easier to reap the benefits. The most desirable effect, or at least the one that directly affects most businesses, is a revenue increase as it underpins the whole of their business model. The most important benefit of AI usage in enterprises is in supply chain management and human resources.

Major improvements to supply chains provide a major boost to revenue by using AI to map out idiosyncrasies and problematic stops. When it comes to human resources, the use of AI can drastically reduce time in hiring cycles by enabling AI-driven algorithms to select those candidates whose resume most aligns with the job requirements.

Artificial intelligence, encompassing all other subbranches, such as machine learning, natural language processing, AI vision, and more, was more widely adopted than generative AI in all functions in businesses in 2023. This is understandable, especially as generative AI is still reaching maturity and full usage. It is noteworthy that in marketing and sales nearly 14 percent of respondents said their business was using generative AI.

During a 2022 survey conducted among professionals in the United States, it was found that 29 percent of respondents belonging to Gen Z used generative AI tools. Moreover, 28 percent of Gen X and 27 percent of millennials respondents used such tools, respectively.

Generative AI

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) refers to algorithms that focus on producing new content, such as text, images, music, speech, code, or video. Generative AI is part of deep learning, the machine learning branch which aims to reduce the manual work of programming parameters for AI. Currently, researchers and developers use generative AI in various industries, like advertising and marketing, but rumors suggest that more businesses and consumers will adopt this technology in the near future to perform a wide range of tasks.

ChatGPT

An example of generative AI is ChatGPT, the famous chatbot software launched in November 2022 by the American startup OpenAI, which is also well known for its art generative AI program Dall-E. The chatbot can produce text based on given inputs, recognize mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. ChatGPT has quickly gained popularity, becoming one of the major breakthroughs of the last few decades in the technology industry. Indeed, it was the fastest IoT service to accumulate a one-million user base, in only five days.

In 2024, Singapore had an artificial intelligence (AI) deployment rate of 53 percent. According to the same source, this was higher than the global adoption level, and among the highest AI adoption rates in the world.

About 14 percent of real estate firms used artificial intelligence, according to a 2023 survey among 750 CFOs at major companies worldwide. Approximately 28 percent of respondents shared that their firm was in early-stage adoption, while 30 percent were piloting the technology. Meanwhile, about three percent of industry experts were not interested.

The functions related to product development, IT and cybersecurity, and marketing, sales and customer service are where most of the generative AI (GenAI) adoption is concentrated in global organizations. The use of the technology is the highest in higher levels of expertise. Over 50 percent and 70 percent of the respondents, with respectively high expertise and very high expertise, report to be using generative AI in a limited or at-scale implementation.

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) by organizations worldwide has increased about five percent from 2022 to 2023. The growth in AI adoption has been consistent across all global regions, with Europe leading with nearly ten percent increase from the previous year. For both 2022 and 2023, North America was the region with the highest adoption rate, with approximately 61 percent of the respondents in the latest year.

Artificial intelligence to help enhance payments was significantly more an option for younger respondents than it was for their older counterparts in 2024. This is according to a survey held in 14 different countries across North America, Europe, and Latin America. The source observed in 2023 already that most respondents - regardless of age - were not yet comfortable with the idea of AI in digital payments. This revealed itself, especially, in the reply from 10 percent of the respondents that they would perhaps use artificial intelligence in two years' time when it had become more established. In 2024, the source did not ask how many people actively used AI during their payments journey. Examples of AI in day-to-day digital payments for consumers The source lists three specific use cases of artificial intelligence in consumer-driven payments: Smart wallets, AI-powered checkouts, and chatbots. One example includes Amazon's Just Walk Out (JWO) in its Amazon Go shops in the United States. The technology uses machine learning to identify what customers picked off the shelves and then bill them automatically. This solution aims at the innovation consumers hope to see most in shopping, especially online: A seamless payments experience. Payment providers had a similar impression, in that they observed a demand among their clients for real-time payments. More so than for lower payment processing costs or cross-border payment solutions. The source adds certain payment solutions might already be using AI in the background, but that consumers are simply not aware of them. AI pros and cons for financial services The finance industry is expected to make heavy use of artificial intelligence's capabilities for years to come. AI's ability to monitor trends and improve data analytics, especially, is popular among financial service providers. Another popular use is that AI can help process large quantities of data. This is especially useful for larger investment-style banks. There are concerns, though. Data issues and growing concerns about keeping talent on board to help out with issues or data sciences ranked as the top AI concerns in 2024.

Around one-third of travel managers surveyed worldwide in late-2024 said that the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) at their companies for business travel programs was important, but not a priority in that year. Only 14 percent said that they were already using AI for travel management tasks.