A recent survey by smart automation company ABBYY reveals that an increasing number of businesses are ramping up their investments in artificial intelligence (AI) due to "fear of missing out" (FOMO).
You heard that right, a full 63% of global IT leaders say they are concerned that without AI, their company's competitiveness would decline. This fear has driven their average AI investment over the past year to exceed $879,000! Despite a third of business leaders being concerned about implementation costs, nearly all respondents (96%) plan to increase their AI investments next year.
Image source note: The image is generated by AI, provided by the image licensing service Midjourney
Moreover, pressure from customers is another major factor driving businesses to use AI, with over half of business leaders agreeing. Interestingly, IT leaders' concerns about employees potentially misusing AI (35%) exceed worries about costs (33%) and AI generating misinformation (32%).
When it comes to trust, the vast majority of respondents (84%) expressed high trust in AI tools. Especially specialized AI tools known as small language models (SLM) are favored by 93% of decision-makers, who say they are already using such tools, like intelligent document processing (IDP).
Maxime Vermeir, Senior Director of AI Strategy at ABBYY, noted that organizations have high trust in small language models, primarily because large language models (LLM) often produce inaccurate or even harmful results. Now, more business leaders are turning to SLMs to meet their specific business needs and ensure more reliable outcomes.
In the survey, 91% of respondents expressed confidence in their companies following government regulations, but only 56% said they have their own trusted AI policies. Meanwhile, 48% believe that if their company had tools to monitor AI compliance, their confidence would increase.
Different regions also have varying levels of trust in AI. The highest trust is in the US, at 87%; Singapore follows closely at 86%; while France has a relatively lower trust level of 77%.
Key takeaways:
- 💰 **63%** of businesses increased AI investment due to "fear of missing out" (FOMO), averaging over $879,000!
- 🤖 **84%** of respondents trust AI tools, with trust in small language models as high as 90%!
- 📊 **91%** of companies believe in following government regulations, but only 56% have their own trusted AI policies!