Deloitte survey: Almost nine in ten UK businesses to invest in artificial intelligence by 2020

• 85 per cent of UK organisations plan to invest in artificial intelligence and the internet of things in the next three years;
• Half of organisations to invest more than £10 million in digital by 2020;
• Just one in ten executives believe that UK is a world leader in digital;
• Only 20 per cent believe there are enough school leavers and graduates entering the labour market with the appropriate digital skills and experience.

Eighty-five per cent of senior executives plan to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) by 2020, according to a new survey of UK digital leaders by Deloitte.

The findings come from the first edition of a new regular report from Deloitte, the Digital Disruption Index. The index will track investment in digital technologies and create a detailed picture of their impact on the largest and most influential business and public sector bodies. The first edition includes responses from 51 organisations with a combined market value of £229bn.

Over half of survey respondents expect that by 2020, they will invest more than £10 million in digital technologies and ways of working – such as AI, cloud, robotics, blockchain, analytics, the IoT, and virtual and augmented reality. Seventy-three per cent say they will invest in robotics, 63 per cent in augmented and virtual reality, 62 per cent in wearables, 54 per cent in biometrics (such as voice and finger recognition), and 43 per cent in blockchain.*

This year alone, 30 per cent of UK organisations will invest more than £10 million in these technologies. But when compared with corporate IT budgets this represents a rather modest amount of investment. According to separate Deloitte research, the majority of IT functions have budgets of over £20 million, while a quarter of corporate IT functions spend more than £75 million annually.**

As a likely consequence, at this stage only nine per cent of executives believe that UK companies are world leading at exploring and implementing digital technologies and ways of working.

Paul Thompson, UK digital transformation leader at Deloitte, explains: “The first edition of the index shows that few UK businesses are successfully exploiting digital technologies and ways of working. Strategies are not coherent, investment levels are modest and the relevant skills are in short supply. As a result, the UK isn’t living up to its digital potential.”

Rise of artificial intelligence
Of all of the digital technologies surveyed, executives believe AI will have the biggest impact on their organisations in the future. Investment in AI at this stage remains modest though, with only 22 per cent having already invested in it. Of those that have invested, only a third expect to spend more than £1 million in 2017. This suggests that organisations are currently testing with pilots, rather than large scale deployments.

Seventy-seven per cent of leaders expect AI to disrupt their industries. Just under half expect their workforce to get smaller as they adopt AI, but only eight per cent believe AI will directly replace human activity. Over a third believe AI will be used to augment expertise, with a focus on improving human decision-making.

Thompson adds: “AI will have a profound impact on the future of work. Our view is that human and machine intelligence complement each other, and that AI should not simply be seen as a substitute. Humans working with AI will achieve better outcomes than AI alone, and UK businesses need to get this careful balance right.”

The digital skills gap
Only 20 per cent of leaders believe there are enough school leavers and graduates entering the labour market with the appropriate digital skills and experience.

Three-quarters of executives face challenges recruiting the right digital skills. Leaders say data scientists and analysts are the most important roles for a successful digital strategy, but these are also the most difficult digital roles to retain and recruit.

Over half of leaders say their organisation’s learning and development curriculum does not support their digital strategy. Forty-five per cent say that their organisation does not provide them and other leaders with the resources needed, such as training and coaching through a variety of multimedia channels, to develop their own digital skills.

Thompson concludes: “The UK has the opportunity to be a market-leader in harnessing and exploiting the opportunities digital brings, including increased productivity and driving growth. But it’s clear that digital skills, at all levels, are in short supply and high demand. In our view, digital represents both a business and public policy issue which needs educators, policymakers and business to work more closely together, in order to meet the current and future demands of the UK’s economy.”

End

Notes to editors

*Full list of technologies include: cyber-security, cloud, analytics, the Internet of Things, robotic process automation (‘robotics’), wearables, 3D printing, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, commercial UAVs, autonomous vehicles and blockchain.

** Deloitte CIO survey, November 2016.

About Deloitte’s Digital Disruption Index
Deloitte invited leaders from the UK’s most influential companies and public sector bodies to participate in an online survey. Fifty-one executives responsible for digital technologies and ways of working from FTSE listed companies, large private companies and large UK public sector organisations participated in the survey. The combined market value of the 51 survey participants is £229 billion, which equates to approximately 9% of the UK quoted equity market. This information, which was collected between April and July 2017, has been analysed in aggregate and forms the basis of this publication.

About Deloitte

In this press release references to “Deloitte” are references to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”) a UK private company limited by guarantee, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of DTTL and its member firms.

Deloitte LLP is a subsidiary of Deloitte NWE LLP, which is a member firm of DTTL, and is among the UK's leading professional services firms.

The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

For more information, please visit www.deloitte.co.uk.

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