Gartner just released its 2019 CIO Survey of 3,000+ executives in 89 countries, which found that implementation of artificial intelligence grew 270 percent in the past four years. In 2018, use of AI grew 37 percent, up from 10 percent in 2015. The company estimates that the AI market will be valued at $6.14 billion by 2022. Gartner distinguished research vice president Chris Howard noted that we are still “far from general AI that can wholly take over complex tasks,” but that we have entered the “augmented intelligence” era.

VentureBeat reports Howard added that augmented intelligence is defined as “AI-augmented work and decision science.” “If you are a CIO and your organization doesn’t use AI, chances are high that your competitors do and this should be a concern,” said Howard.

The McKinsey Global Institute also stated that, “labor market shifts will result in a 1.2 percent increase in gross domestic product growth (GDP) for the next ten years and help capture an additional 20 to 25 percent in net economic benefits — $13 trillion globally — in the next 12 years.”

The surveyed CIOs were from companies that “represent $15 trillion in revenue and public-sector budgets and $284 billion in IT spending,” and whose “deployment of AI tripled in the past year, rising from 25 percent in 2018.” The increase is due to the AI capabilities’ maturation, said Gartner, along with “the rapidity with which it’s become an ‘integral part’ of digital strategies.”

That jibes with the results of Deloitte’s second State of the Enterprise brief, “in which 42 percent of executives said they believed that AI would be of ‘critical importance’ within two years.”

Deloitte’s report detailed areas of growth: 62 percent of companies adopted natural language processing, up from 53 percent a year ago; 58 percent adopted machine learning, up 5 percent year-over-year; and 57 percent and 50 percent, respectively, embraced computer vision and deep learning, a 16 percent increase from 2017.

Surveyed CIOs said the biggest obstacle to adopting machine learning is “the lack of workers with AI know-how,” with about 54 percent saying this “skills gap [is] the biggest challenge facing their organization.” Tata Communications reported similarly late last year that, “a lack of appropriate skills and employees’ understanding about the technologies being adopted were among executives’ top concerns.”

Twenty percent of those responding to the Deloitte report added that the “shortage in AI software developers, data scientists, user-experience designers, change-management experts, project managers, business leaders, and subject-matter experts” is another obstacle.

“In order to stay ahead, CIOs need to be creative,” said Howard. “If there is no AI talent available, another possibility is to invest in training programs for employees with backgrounds in statistics and data management. Some organizations also create job shares with ecosystem and business partners.”