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Enterprise AI Strategy in 2024: Maximizing Growth, Return on Investment, and Data Security

ShawnaMR
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Guest IDC Blogger: Ashish Nadkarni

Sponsored by Intel

Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a catalyst for business transformation

AI is a revolution that is accelerating the steady pace of digital transformation seen by enterprises in the last decade or so. New AI use cases will turbocharge this transformation. Some companies are already using AI to co-develop digital products and services, potentially doubling their revenue growth compared to their competitors. So vast is the scale at which AI — and particularly generative AI (Gen AI) — will impact enterprise value creation that IDC's Future Enterprise Research finds that more than 80% of IT leaders expect full-year spending in 2024 to increase or remain stable due to AI initiatives.

Unlike traditional digital transformation, which was expected to be a multi-year journey, AI-led digital transformation (AI-DX) is urgent and requires velocity for enterprises to remain competitive and grow. At the same time, it cannot be ad hoc. AI is poised to impact infrastructure strategy and spending at the highest level. Therefore, it requires planning at all levels and across all businesses.

AI has become a board-level conversation. The boards of enterprise companies worldwide are asking their C-suite for a plan on investments in AI to solve business problems. The tech C-suite must make investments to meet the needs of the business now and in the future. Implementing AI strategies is a multi-faceted, business-wide initiative. Tech C-suite executives must not only look for strategies to get to market fast but also address challenges related to cost optimization, data compliance, and security. On the infrastructure side, the tech C-suite must ask IT teams to develop an infrastructure stack that can be leveraged for any workload, including AI and GenAI. The best infrastructure will be open and flexible so that DevOps teams will have the ability to quickly experiment and iterate without having to build a special lab environment.

How businesses are responding

Enterprises are increasing investments in AI to expand revenue streams in tandem with business differentiation. IDC’s research finds that between 2022 and 2026, enterprise spending on AI-centric systems will grow at 27% annually. In 2023, enterprise investments in GenAI solutions surpassed $19.5 billion. This includes spending on on-premises infrastructure and cloud-based infrastructure-as-a-service solutions. AI will be the engine that powers the business whether it accelerates product and service innovation using newer, never-before-seen approaches, augments human thinking and actions, streamlines operations, or reduces costs.

Many tech C-suite executives struggle to determine the level of infrastructure investments required to deploy AI. IDC’s research finds that skimping on the proper amount of investment is a sure-shot way for AI initiatives to fail or deliver subpar results. On the other hand, over-investments lead to cost overruns and poor returns on investment. The tech C-suite will need to consider balancing infrastructure investments with the need to get to market quickly, manage costs, and keep data protected.

Conclusion

Working with the right partner can enable enterprises to design and implement a long-term AI infrastructure stack that is resilient, scalable, and responsible. As a result, enterprises can achieve a lower TCO, help ensure data protection, and deploy workloads across virtually any location and deployment type.

Message from the sponsor

Intel technologies for bringing AI everywhere

Intel enables the AI continuum in every platform, from client and edge to datacenter and cloud. Intel's portfolio includes a diverse range of processors and accelerators, networking, and software. Together with a world-class ecosystem of hardware, software, and cloud vendors, Intel powers solutions that help enterprises accelerate their adoption of AI and realize value faster.

Read more in this IDC Spotlight: AI Infrastructure in 2024: Choosing Datacenter and Cloud Resources

 

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