Following a welcome by Publicis Groupe chairman Maurice Lévy, senior partners of McKinsey, Jacques Bughin and Eric Hazan took to the stage to set the tone for the day and present the consultancy’s latest study, “AI: the next digital frontier”.
“We’re already seeing examples of AI having a serious impact on business,” said Hazan, pointing to Netflix where four out of five things watched are the result of its recommendation engine. “Amazon’s use of AI has seen a 75% reduction in click-to-shop time, resulting in $1bn in reduced churn and increased sales.”
The current landscape, Bughin explained, is predominantly powered by machine learning (56%) which underpins the use of AI for computer vision, natural language processing, virtual assistants, robotics and autonomous vehicles.
However, despite the prevalence of the technology and the success companies like Amazon have seen from it, most (80%) of the 3,000 C-Suite executives surveyed for the study are still contemplating.
“Most are unable to pin a definite ROI to the decision (41%), while 30% struggle to find a business case, and finally 28% lack the technical capability to implement it,” Hazan said. “Early adopters of AI are digitally mature, larger businesses, adopt AI in core activities, focus on growth over savings, C-suite level support for AI.”
Finally, McKinsey’s study addressed the fear that AI will take away jobs.
“AI will automate tasks, not jobs. While up to 40% of current work could be automated, less than 10% of jobs can be 90% automated,” Bughin said.
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