Employment worries and ethical concerns are a barrier to the adoption of artificial intelligence, with over 71% of Australian workers concerned AI will replace them.
New research, presented at the World Economic Forum, shows nine in 10 (89%) large Australian businesses have deployed AI technology – a jump from just two thirds (65%).
However 71% of leaders in in retail state their workers are concerned AI will replace them.
Out of the seven countries surveyed (US, UK, France, Germany, India and China) Australian businesses ranked second only to China in AI deployment, overtaking India from last year’s research.
The independent survey of 1,000 senior business leaders of large organisations found half believe AI deployments in their organisation are greatly outpacing the accuracy and productivity of humans doing the same task.
The study found enterprises are moving beyond the experimentation phase with AI, deploying AI technologies more broadly and realising benefits across their business.
Some 73% globally agreed AI deployments have already transformed the way they do business, and 90% of C-level executives reporting measurable benefits from AI within their organisation.
Of those Australian C-level executives in retail organisations that have deployed AI, 78% have noted measurable gains from deploying AI.
Greater productivity was a main benefit of AI deployment for 86% of business decision makers at retail organisations, with a further half noting it has helped increase the number of customers.
Looking ahead, 57% of retail organisations in Australia have plans to build a dedicated team of AI professionals in the near future, with 79% Australian retail C-level executives seeing their future business strategies hinging on AI.
However, 71% of them are having a difficult time finding qualified staff to lead integration of AI technologies – a key skills gap holding Australian businesses back.
The AI projects Australian businesses are deploying include algorithms capable of learning and constantly improving specific processes to automate and solve business challenges.
Australian deployment of AI to-date has been predominantly in Machine Learning (51%), Automated Reasoning (48%), Robotics (47%), Knowledge Representation (44%) and Natural Language Processing (39%).