Will artificial intelligence revolutionize the IT industry in 2024? Expectations are high, the mood is positive, but the challenges are even greater.
90% of companies that took part in the latest Talent Alpha Tech Business Survey 2024, conducted among approximately 100 IT service industry managers operating in 41 countries, predict that artificial intelligence (AI) will have a positive impact on the development of the IT sector and plan to use it in various areas of operation. 83% of them believe that AI will help their own company grow, and over half of the respondents plan to use it to increase productivity within the next year. Nearly half of AI enthusiasts predict that positive changes will affect the entire IT sector, while 39% believe that only certain areas of IT will be significantly supported by AI. However, not everyone feels ready for this revolution. 31% of respondents state that the challenge is the lack of appropriate processes, and 27% fear security issues.
2023 was a time of great challenges for the IT services sector. 2024 brings new hopes, but also fears associated with one of the hottest technological topics – artificial intelligence. The Talent Alpha Tech Business Survey 2024 indicates that companies will closely monitor the changes AI brings in the coming 12 months, and more and more businesses plan to use it in several business areas. The most frequently mentioned tasks include increasing their own efficiency – both internal (67%) and external, focusing on improving results for their customers (59%). Companies also want to use AI in the product area – to improve current products (13%) and create new ones (16%). The main areas with increased AI usage in 2024 will be marketing and sales (55% in both cases). Furthermore, 36% of respondents plan to generate written content, and 33% want to support graphic creation using AI tools.
Expectations are growing and the spirit is mostly positive. AI can be helpful in solving some of the problems related to repetitive processes by replacing or optimizing them, which will improve the efficiency of selected tasks. This is confirmed by the Talent Alpha research, as only 4% of respondents are pessimistic about the consequences of implementing AI, predicting that it could have a detrimental impact. “Artificial intelligence has the potential to bring about massive, positive changes in the world and almost half of the managers in our study believe that AI will accelerate the development of the entire IT sector. This, however, also comes with huge challenges that can lead to the fulfillment of the bleakest scenarios. Leaders of change, who bear the responsibility for the future of the labor market, are managers in companies implementing AI. They are not always aware of their responsibility and often do not feel adequately prepared,” says Agnieszka Porębska, CEO of Talent Alpha.
The use of AI in business not only brings hope for increased productivity and improved service quality, but also generates real obstacles and concerns. The challenges indicated by the companies participating in the Talent Alpha study come from many business areas. The Tech Business Survey 2024 confirms that not everyone is ready for widespread implementation of AI-based solutions. 31% of respondents express concerns about the lack of appropriate AI procedures, and security issues (27%). Lack of proper data (25%), a complicated decision-making process (18%) and legal issues (10%) are the next challenges facing companies in 2024. However, the most common concerns relate to staff – a significant number of companies indicate that the lack of qualified employees may be one of their biggest problems related to the implementation of AI (35%). Respondents also fear a lack of enthusiasm, and even opposition, from their employees and customers after the introduction of AI-based solutions. This doubt concerns 16% of the responses, in both cases. A lack of budget for AI implementation (31%) is another concern of many companies.
“AI usage in enterprises worldwide is already making waves. Most of the companies that took part in the Talent Alpha study are already using AI to support marketing (54%) and sales (47%), for example by generating content (68%) or images (22%). For 37% of all respondents, AI is a way to increase creativity by using it to generate new ideas. Among companies using AI to improve IT service efficiency, 35% used various code generation tools, and 31% used code testing tools. Other, less common uses of AI included using AI to analyze employee skills and facilitate customer contact (33%).”-Talent Alpha.
