Deloitte finds that 85% of UK businesses will invest in AI by 2020

A recent survey of digital leaders, conducted by Deloitte, has revealed that 85% of UK businesses are planning on investing in emerging technologies such as AI within the next three years.

“To be ready for the fourth industrial revolution, businesses need to start adopting new technology today,” said Joseph Reger, Chief Technology Officer of Fujitsu, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEIA).

“With AI rapidly gaining importance businesses should be taking the onus to trail, test and implement the technology themselves. Technology will open entirely new avenues for businesses to create exciting digital concepts; however, it is up to the business to act first.

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The findings come as part of Deloitte’s new Digital Disruption Index that will look to track investment in digital technologies to get an idea of the impact of industry 4.0 throughout a number of key UK sectors. The first edition saw 51 firms surveyed, that combined hold a market value of £229bn.

However, whilst the report also finds that over half of firms are planning to invest at least £10mn into digital technologies such as AI, cloud, robotics, blockchain, data analytics, IoT, and virtual and augmented reality by 2020, this is a rather modest investment when compared with corporate IT budgets that stand over £75mn for a quarter of those surveyed.

“The first edition of the index shows that few UK businesses are successfully exploiting digital technologies and ways of working,” said Paul Thompson, UK Digital Transformation Leader at Deloitte. “Strategies are not coherent; investment levels are modest and the relevant skills are in short supply. As a result, the UK isn’t living up to its digital potential.”

As a result, Deloitte finds that only 9% of UK business executives believe that UK companies are currently world leading when it comes to implementing digital technologies.