What To Expect From AI in 2020

For all those worried about robots taking our jobs and technology putting people out of work, according to Gartner, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will actually create 2.3 Million jobs in 2020, while only eliminating 1.8 million. 

2020 is upon us, and it's not just the increase in jobs that looks set to be a positive thanks to AI as innovations in healthcare, finance, and retail are also transforming the way we live our lives.

The world's largest medical device company, Medtronic has recently announced the launch of its new GI Genius technology, which is an intelligent endoscopy module and is the first system worldwide using artificial intelligence to detect colorectal polyps, providing physicians with a "powerful" new solution in the fight against colorectal cancer.

AI will also mean an increase in accessibility as Gartner also predicts that by 2023, the number of people with disabilities employed will triple as necessary cultural and technical changes will be made. 

In the finance sector, a recent study by Deloitte entitled AI Leaders In Financial Services reported that frontrunner financial services firms are achieving company-wide revenue growth of 19% directly attributable to their AI initiatives, much higher than the 12% of follower firms achieve. 70% of firms participating in the study use machine learning in production environments today and 60% are using Natural Language Processing (NLP). 60% of frontrunner financial services firms are defining AI success by improvements to revenue – 47% by improving customer experience. 49% of frontrunners have a comprehensive organizational strategy in place for AI adoption, which departments are expected to follow, giving them immediate scale and speed over rival firms. 45% of AI frontrunner firms are investing over $5M in AI initiatives today, 3X the level of starters or late adopters.

When it comes to retail marketing, the rapid improvements in AI technology are driving increased adoption of AI-based customer service systems, which are expected to be more prevalent in 2020. As well as this, AI and predictive analytics will help retailers to identify buying trends and quickly launch automated campaigns that will inspire highly targeted customers to act. In-store experiences will become highly personalized, as well. 

Artificial Intelligence for IT operations or AIOps as Gartner named it in 2017, refers to the way data and information from an application environment are managed by an IT team using artificial intelligence. According to Gartner, "AIOps platforms enhance IT operations through greater insights by combining big data, machine learning, and visualization. I&O leaders should initiate AIOps deployment to refine performance analysis today and augment to IT service management and automation over the next two to five years."

Finally, there is the one we're all familiar with and all waiting for, the autonomous vehicles. According to PwC, 40% of mileage in Europe could be covered by autonomous vehicles by 2030, and according to the US Department of Transportation, 63.3% of the $1,139 billion of goods shipped in 2017 were moved on roads making road freight one of the largest emissions producers in the world. The benefits of self-driving cars and trucks are considerable in this light. They can drive for hours without losing concentration and can optimize fuel usage and routes to help improve energy and time management.


Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay