Increasing Use of AI and Machine Learning 

According to Gartner’s 2019 CIO Agenda survey, the percentage of organizations adopting AI jumped from four to 14% between 2018 and 2019. Given the benefits that AI/ML offers in business analysis, risk assessment, R&D, and resulting cost-savings, AI implementation will continue to rise in 2020. 

However, many organizations that adopt AI and Machine Learning don’t fully understand these technologies. In fact, Forbes points out that 40% of the European companies claiming to be ‘AI startups’ don’t use the technology.

While the benefits of AI and ML are becoming more evident, businesses will need to step up and hire people with the right skills to implement these technologies. Some are well on their way. KPMG’s recent survey of Global 500 companies shows that most of those surveyed expect their investment in AI-related talent to increase by 50-100% over the next three years.  

Transparency Trends in AI

Despite becoming so ubiquitous, AI suffers from trust issues. As businesses plan to increase their use of AI systems, they will want to do so more confidently. After all, no one wants to trust the decisions of a system that they don’t understand. 

Hence, there will be a bigger push for deploying AI in a transparent and clearly-defined manner in 2020. While companies will make efforts to understand how AI models and algorithms work, AI/ML software providers will need to make sophisticated ML solutions more explainable to users. 

With transparency becoming a key conversation in the AI space, the roles of professionals who are in the trenches of programming and algorithm development will become more critical.