Posts annual growth rate of 33.5%
DUBAI 12 December 2018: A report by the Dubai Technology Entrepreneurship Campu (Dtec), revealed that the UAE ranks first in the region in terms of enterprise adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) applications with an annual growth rate of 33.5 per cent.
Dtec is a wholly owned technology hub by Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA).
The report titled, ‘Artificial Intelligence Adoption in Enterprise 2018’, was prepared in collaboration with ArabNet and startAD, an innovation and entrepreneurship platform anchored at New York University Abu Dhabi and powered by Tamkeen, said Wam.
The report quotes PwC’s 2017 forecasts that the contribution of AI to the global economy will increase to US$15.7 trillion by 2030, and that AI will contribute $96 billion to (13.6 per cent) to the UAE GDP by 2030.
Regional AI Growth
While the report predicts that AI adoption will account for 45 per cent of the world economy’s total gains by 2030, the UAE ranks first in the Arab world in terms of expected annual growth of AI contribution to the economy at 33.5 per cent, followed by Saudi Arabia at 31.3 percent, the rest of the GCC region at 28.8 per cent, and Egypt at 25.5 percent.
The report identifies multiple solutions AI can offer to companies, including operational applications, automation of robotic operations, reengineering of business processes, blockchain, big data analysis for marketing, customer care and data management, as well as using neural programming in talent search.
The report lists three priority areas for enterprise adoption of AI solutions:
- AI for operation enhancement
- AI for customer service enhancement
- AI for growth strategy support
The document identifies the main factors that can have a positive or negative effect on the adoption of AI applications among companies and institutions, such as cost-benefit ratio, key trends that dominate the field, and budget availability. It also outlines the concerns of entities regarding AI, primarily the risk of security breach, data leaks, privacy threats, job replacement, lack of knowledge required by suppliers, and the absence of regulatory frameworks in many countries. The report calls on companies specialising in AI to dispel these fears.