Business AI trends and innovations for 2022

“Launching pilots is deceptively easy but deploying them into production is notoriously challenging... Although the potential for success is enormous, delivering business impact from AI initiatives takes much longer than anticipated.” - Chirag Dekate, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner Some of the common reasons for AI projects’ unclear financial outcomes include:

“Last year, IT spending took the form of a knee-jerk reaction to enable a remote workforce in a matter of weeks. As hybrid work takes hold, CIOs will focus on spending that enables innovation, not just task completion.” - John-David Lovelock, Research Vice President at Gartner In the pandemic-ridden world, the role of information technology has shifted from supporting business operations to delivering business value. This change has had a profound impact on AI innovations and trends.

“Responsible AI helps achieve fairness, even though biases are baked into the data; gain trust, although transparency and explainability methods are evolving; and ensure regulatory compliance, while grappling with AI’s probabilistic nature.” - Svetlana Sicular, Research VP at Gartner In their recent article for Harvard Business Review, David De Cremer and Garry Kasparov described AI-based machines as “fast, more accurate, and consistently rational,” noting, however, that present-day AI innovations often lack intuition, emotional intelligence, and cultural sensitivity. While end-to-end automation and subsequent workforce reductions are not yet among the artificial intelligence trends for 2022, governments will need to address the moral implications of artificial intelligence adoption in their national AI strategies, ensuring positive automation outcomes for all parties involved. When it comes to business AI, companies should focus on creating intelligent systems that explain the rationale behind their decisions and do not discriminate against people based on their ethnicity, age, gender, religion, or place of residence. Additionally, stakeholders need to clearly communicate automation benefits to get employees on board and encourage them to participate in AI deployment and training. These numbers indicate that ethical, responsible artificial intelligence usage will be one of the defining AI trends for the upcoming year:

“We’ve seen a lot of the ransomware attacks and what it’s done. And in particular, it has impacted business resiliency. It’s no longer the case of encrypted computer and, you know, Reimage, and carry on. It’s impacting massive amounts of business and costing hundreds of millions of dollars.” George Kurtz, CEO at CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. Using intelligent algorithms for cyberattack prevention became one of the most significant AI innovations of the past years. Forward-thinking enterprises leverage artificial intelligence to detect suspicious traffic within corporate IT networks, identify malicious software programs, spot infected links in employees’ emails, and even model cyberattack scenarios based on vulnerability assessments. The trouble is, the other side (i.e., cybercriminals) can do the magic too. For example, hackers can now manipulate the data used for AI model training, causing adversarial attacks. Other AI breakthroughs in the cybercrime field include inference, which allows attackers to access sensitive data by reversing AI engineer systems, and advanced social engineering techniques driven by behavior analytics. Additionally, hackers may employ AI to pinpoint security vulnerabilities in corporate IT systems. To address these looming threats, companies looking to deploy AI innovations should closely monitor all the data presented to AI models, review real-world data used for model training, and build the elements of randomness into their artificial intelligence models. Below you will find several statistics shedding light on artificial intelligence trends in the cybersecurity domain:

“We cannot reduce what we cannot measure. Corporations ‘ climate action does not match our ambitions: one of the main reasons is that corporations don’t accurately measure their climate impact and track it enough over time. Fortunately, tools and techniques to help us exist, one of the most powerful ones is artificial intelligence.” - Charlotte Degot, Managing Director and Partner at BCG GAMMA Through 2022 and beyond, governments and businesses alike could turn to artificial intelligence to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, combat deforestation, and cut CO2 emissions. And while green AI innovations are still scarce at national levels, we’ve seen several commercial AI deployments that assist businesses in achieving their sustainability goals. Google, for instance, coupled their data center cooling technology with deep learning and reduced energy consumption by 40% . And CO2 AI, a novel sustainable artificial intelligence solution by Boston Consulting Group, helps enterprises cut CO2 emissions by 30-40% by accurately measuring their carbon footprint and making intelligent recommendations. These numbers prove that environmental sustainability is one of the hottest business AI trends for 2022: