This article is made out of excerpts from a joint Survey made by MIT & Google conducted in late 2016, and which you can download here.
Machine Learning is for many enterprises the new proving ground for Competitive Advantage. A recent survey conducted by MIT Technology Review Custom and Google Cloud reveals that while the majority of businesses are struggling to apply Machine Learning, others are hard at work developing strategies for the technology — and are already realizing genuine ROI.
The survey included 375 qualified respondents representing a variety of industries, with the preponderance coming from the technology industry (43%) but also business services (13%) and financial services (10%). Most qualified respondents were either C-level executives (39%) or enterprise developers (37%), rounded out by vice president-level executives (23%).
Almost half (48%) of respondents come from organizations with fewer than 50 staffers; 22% from companies of 50 to 1,000 employees and 32% comes from companies with more than 1,000 employees. While the survey was global, respondents came mostly from the United States and Canada (40%), Europe (13%), India (6%) and the U.K. (5%).
In terms of technology adoption, nearly half the respondents considered their company cultures to be innovation-driven, with “agile, collaborative, even ground-breaking” cultures (45%). In the vast majority of cases (95%), respondents either plan to or have implemented some online analytics processing BI program and visualization tools or traditional Big Data technologies such as Hadoop and cloud-based analytics.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Machine Learning is happening now. The majority of respondents (60%) have already implemented Machine Learning strategies, and nearly one third considered themselves to be at a mature stage with their initiatives.
- Machine Learning provides marketplace advantage. According to respondents, a key benefit of Machine Learning is the ability to gain a competitive edge, and 26% of current Machine Learning implementers felt they had already achieved that goal.
- Organizations are investing in Machine Learning. Among current Machine Learning implementers, some 26% reported that more than 15% of their IT budgets was dedicated to Machine Learning initiatives.
- Early adopters are realizing Machine Learning’s biggest potential benefits. The top hoped for benefit among Machine Learning implementers and planners is the ability to extend data analysis efforts and increase data insights. Some 45% of respondents report success in meeting that goal. In addition, more than half of both early-stage and mature-stage users say their Machine Learning efforts have resulted in demonstrable return on investment (ROI).
- Machine Learning implementers are pursuing a broad range of projects. The most common projects among current Machine Learning implementers are image recognition, classification, and tagging (47%); emotion/behavior analysis (47%); text classification and mining (47%); and natural language processing, or NLP (45%).
HIGHLIGHTS
- 50% Machine Learning users say they are seeking more data analysis and insight
- 45% Machine Learning adopters say the technology has led to more extensive data analysis and insights
- Top achieved benefit of current machine learning implementers: 45% cite increasing insights through more extensive data analysis
- 50% Planners are seeking better understanding of customers and prospects as reason for Machine Learning
Key Benefit for Machine Learning Implementers
Of all Machine Learning’s expected benefits, increasing insights through more extensive data analysis stands out as the one that current Machine Learning implementers were most interested in achieving (50%) or certain of having achieved (45%). “Taking data that’s unstructured—images, e-mail, product reviews, customer service calls—and making sense of it.”
Key Benefit for Machine Learning Planners
More extensive data analysis and increased number of insights (45%); faster data analysis and faster insights (37%); enhanced research and development capabilities, including insights into creating next-generation products (39%); and increased efficiency of internal processes (44%).
However, 50% Machine Learning planners were expecting to gain a better understanding of customer and prospect behaviors, needs and desires, compared with 35% implementers.
Another important note: both current Machine Learning implementers and planners agree that a key advantage of Machine Learning is the ability to gain a competitive edge, with 46% of the former group and 48% of the latter expressing this belief. Already, 26% of current Machine Learning implementers felt they had achieved that goal.
Fausto Ibarra, director of Google Cloud Platform
OBSERVATION
The speed with which respondents are able to demonstrate ROI with their Machine Learning initiatives is also notable, which, as mentioned earlier, was the not the case with Big Data analytics. Within the early-stage group, more than half report they are beginning to see a demonstrable ROI, and within the mature-stage group, more than half had demonstrated ROI.
Conclusion
Just as every time a new knowledge or technology surfaces, early adopters of Machine Learning will gain market advantage and rapidly move ahead of peers and competitors.
As we went from data to BI and now from Big Data to Machine Learning & AI, clearly, our ability to compete will increasingly depend on our ability to work with machines that interpret and learn from our data.
Denis Paul & Michel
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