From translations to chatbots: The future has arrived as UK firms rush to implement artificial intelligence
It seems the future is knocking as more and more UK businesses are actively looking to implement artificial intelligence, with solutions such as speech recognition, machine translations, chatbots and sentiment analysis being the key drivers.
Many businesses are opting to take a low- or no-code approach to implementing artificial intelligence solutions into their operations, according to new research shared exclusively with City PM today.
Tech firm Soffos commissioned an independent survey amongst 358 decision-makers from UK businesses. Of those surveyed, 32 per cent of businesses are already using AI, with a further 12 per cent looking to implement in the next 12 months, and another 14 per cent beyond this period.
Specifically, the majority (65 per cent) of businesses have used, or are planning to use, low- or no-code approach to deploying AI within their organisation.
When it comes to the solutions that organisations have implemented, the vast majority (77 per cent) of respondents have implemented, or are exploring, Natural Language Processing (NLP) solutions such as speech recognition, machine translations, chatbots and sentiment analysis.
An additional 72 per cent said that they have deployed, or are planning to implement, forecasting models, price optimisation or other machine learning algorithms.
As things currently stand, 62 per cent of organisations said that they have a role or dedicated team in place to manage in-house AI initiatives.
However, this figure drops to 47 per cent amongst the smaller firms surveyed.
When surveyed about their attitudes towards the implementation process, business-leaders were divided, with 51 per cent stating that application development should fall within the remit of internal IT staff.
Nevertheless, a slightly higher number of respondents (53%) stated that citizen development, which encourages non-technical employees to become software developers, is good for business, allowing IT staff to focus on high-code projects and innovation.
“The unstoppable rise of citizen development and low- and no-code platforms has been critical to the digitalization journeys of many businesses over the past few years,” said Nikolas Kairinos, CEO and founder of Soffos, this morning.
“Low-code looks set to touch yet another crucial digital transformation touchstone – artificial intelligence.”
Nikolas Kairinos
“In the current climate, many IT departments are overstretched, overworked, and running as fast as they can just to keep the lights on, let alone implement AI,” he added.
Low-code development platforms (LCAPs) and off-the-shelf vendors are equipping firms with the tools they need to go beyond their day-to-day IT governance and pursue true innovation.
“Gone are the days when software development was the preserve of skilled developers alone. Today, those on the front-line, who may not have the technical experience to boot, can be empowered to render their experience on the ground into genuinely useful AI solutions with no-code tools, while skilled developers can bring products to market in double time thanks to low-code platforms.”
“Ultimately, this will pave the way for more productive, responsive and future-ready organisations,” Kairinos concluded.