Business Demand Will Drive AI Market over $43 Billion

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Tractica, a technology research firm, has good news for companies that specialize in artificial intelligence (AI).

In a new forecast, Tractica predicts that the worldwide market for AI technologies will reach $43.5 billion by 2024 as enterprise deployments pick up steam. The analyst group expects that the market for enterprise AI software, services and hardware will grow to $11.1 billion by 2024 from $202.5 million this year, ballooning at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56.1 percent in the interim.

Seeking to derive value from the data they collect and store, business will increasingly turn to AI technologies like cognitive computing, machine learning, predictive application programming interfaces (APIs) and image recognition, according to Tractica. Advertisers, media companies and financial services firms, are expected to lead the charge.

Manufacturers, retailers and energy producers (oil and gas) will also spur demand. “All of these industries work with complex systems and large data sets where companies are finding strong return on investment (ROI) by deploying AI technologies,” the firm observed.

Bruce Daley, principal analyst at Tractica, said that in practically “every industry, including some very traditional ones, new approaches to age-old problems are being trialed using artificial intelligence,” in a statement. “The business questions being addressed range from where to plant crops to how to detect fraud.”

Enterprises wrestling with turning their big data into business opportunities will be first in line. “The most highly affected industries are likely to be those with large amounts of data, where there are high rewards for making decisions quickly,” said Daley.

Unlike sci-fi renditions of AI, the technology will make its influence apparent in subtle ways. Daley expects AI to be deeply embedded in enterprise IT processes and business operations, fading into background.

And as with any fast-growing and influential technology, traditional businesses will be affected be affected by its disruptive effects, forcing them to adapt. “One needs to look no further than the automotive industry to see how AI technology like Google’s self-driving cars has forced every serious player in the industry worldwide to consider strategies for including AI in their products,” Daley observed.

Google is also backing the Deep Mind initiative to advance AI using machine learning and systems neuroscience. Other companies seeking to take people out of decision trees include Sentient Technologies, Beyond Core, and of course IBM, with its high-profile cognitive computing system, Watson.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

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