AI, Blockchain Adoption Stats Map to Partner Opportunity
Written by Lynn Haber
Research into AI and blockchain adoption gives partners insight into emerging markets to make growth investments.
As an emerging technology, artificial intelligence (AI) has been in the top tier as one that offers real near-term opportunity for channel partners.
Results from a recent survey – Small & Midmarket Business Artificial Intelligence Adoption Trends – from Techaisle, provides insight into the current state of AI adoption, deployment status, application areas, and where AI is being used or planned to be used. All of that plus information on how partners can figure out where AI fits into their business growth strategies.
Techaisle has been collecting data about small and midmarket artificial intelligence (AI) adoption for several years. Channel Futures asked Techaisle CEO and analyst Anurag Agrawal to point out what he thinks are a few surprises in the most recent survey results, which are based on a panel of more than 1.6 million B2B companies. The results cover the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific.
Beginning with the current state of AI adoption, Agrawal was surprised at how close AI adoption levels are in the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific among small businesses. While all the percentage figures are in the single digits – 5% U.S., 3% Europe, and 3% Asia Pacific – they were pretty evenly distributed across the three geographies. Looking at small businesses planning to adopt AI: U.S. (22%), Europe (25%), and Asia Pacific (22%).
Techaisle's Anurag Agrawal
The current state of AI adoption among midmarket business looks a bit different with the highest rate of adoption in the U.S. (26%), followed by Europe (24%) and Asia Pacific (17%). Agrawal expects Asia Pacific to quickly catch up to the other two geos. Midmarket businesses planning to adopt AI is as follows: U.S. (28%), Europe (30%) and Asia Pacific (27%).
"The most important thing for me was the deployment status of those business currently adopting AI who have it in production – not implementing AI or conducting trials – Asia Pacific is ahead of the U.S.," said Agrawal.
So, for example, while 5% of small U.S. businesses are adopting AI, 1% have it deployed in production. Compare that to small businesses in Asia Pacific, where 3% are adopting AI but 4% are have it in production. Similarly, with midmarket organizations: 26% of U.S. midmarket businesses are adopting AI and 6% have deployed AI in production, while 17% of Asia Pacific midmarket companies have adopted it and 10% have it in production.
Agrawal says Asia Pacific AI adoption is being driven by Singapore and China, India and Australia, and in some cases, Japan, leading the way ahead of the U.S.
Another surprise in the data is where companies were using AI or planned to be using it more – for core or non-core applications or for automating IT. What rose to the top was using AI to automate IT — 45% for small businesses and 46% for midmarket.
"That's very interesting because they're looking at AI to automate IT — to automate support, automate the deployment of applications and devices, [and] automate customer support. The reason for that is very simple: It's one of the ways to reduce costs and it also allows IT staff, which has already been very lean and mean – we know that SMBs has one-twentieth the number of IT staff compared to …
Tags: MSPs VARs/SIs Analytics Artificial Intelligence Best Practices Channel Research Digital Transformation IoT RMM/PSA Sales & Marketing Security Specialty Practices Strategy
Red Cross Cyberattack Compromises Highly Vulnerable People's Data
This attack shows how threat actors have ways to indirectly attack any organization.
Avant Analytics: Expect Big CCaaS Adoption, Fueled by AI, Through 2021
Top 20 Stories in May: AWS Leader, Bullies, Michael Dell, SD-WAN Rankings
6 Things to Know About the Upcoming SentinelOne IPO
Deloitte Joins Cloud Cybersecurity Craze with CloudQuest Purchase