Australian businesses rank second only to China in artificial intelligence deployment, with 89% of large businesses having deployed AI technology, according to Infosys.Australia overtook India in an annual survey from the company tracking adoption of AI among large organisations, with adoption in Australia increasing from just 65% in around a year.
Nearly all (95%) Australian C-level executives to have adopted the technology have reported measurable gains from deploying AI.
While most organisations start off by using AI to automate existing inefficient processes, the report also indicates that 76% of Australian IT decision-makers are now using AI to build new mission-critical solutions and services.
Australian deployment of AI to date has primarily been focused on machine learning (adopted by 51% of respondents), automated reasoning (48%), robotics (47%), knowledge representation (44%) and natural language processing (39%).
The majority (57%) of Australian respondents said they have adopted AI in part as a result of concerns that such technologies would benefit their competitors more than themselves.
The research shows that 47% of Australian IT decision-makers believe that AI deployments are greatly outpacing the accuracy and productivity of humans doing the same task.
As a result, two-thirds (69%) stated that their workers are worried that AI will replace them — fears that are not unfounded, with 40% of business decision-makers admitting to eliminating positions as a result of advancement in AI.
But AI deployments are also creating new and evolving business positions, with 59% of business leaders planning to increase training in the functions most affected by AI deployments and 74% planning to build a dedicated team of AI professionals in the future.
“AI technology is a platform to enhance workers, not replace them. As with any new technology, AI will create jobs that don’t already exist in the current workforce,” Infosys SVP and Head of Australia and New Zealand Andrew Groth said.
“Businesses are already looking to have dedicated teams of AI professionals and upskilling existing employees will no doubt be part of this transition. For those currently in roles where AI is being deployed to automate mundane and repetitive tasks, this simply frees people to focus on higher value creative work that can only be done with human creativity and imagination.”
But the survey shows that 63% of organisations are having a difficult time finding qualified staff to lead integration on AI technologies, which is holding back further adoption.
The other major barrier is security and privacy, with 57% of Australian respondents believing that these concerns are causing hesitancy to invest in AI technologies.
By Dylan Bushell-Embling
Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/jim
