Cisco, IBM, Microsoft Among Major Players in Accelerating AI Market

Artificlal intelligence (AI) is set to explode in the channel as the global market is expected to reach $190 billion by 2025.

That’s according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets, which projects a compound annual growth rate of 36% The market was $16 billion in 2017.

Key players in the AI market include Cisco, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Google, AWS, Oracle and others.

Nearly every critical sector or industry rely on AI to perform specific tasks that are difficult for humans to complete, according to MarketsandMarkets. This includes applications from streamlining operations to informing better decision making. By using this technology, companies in all sectors are optimizing and automating their processes to increase profitability, it said.

Major market drivers are growing big data, the increasing adoption of cloud-based applications and services, and an increase in demand for intelligent virtual assistants. However, there are a limited number of AI technology experts, which is a restraint to this market, according to the report.

MarketsandMarkets’ Sachin Garg

“Critical challenges facing the AI market include concerns regarding data privacy and the unreliability of AI algorithms,” said Sachin Garg, MarketsandMarkets’ associate vice president. “Underlying opportunities in the artificial intelligence market include improving operational efficiency in the manufacturing industry and the adoption of AI to improve customer service.”

AI also is driving the market for the semiconductor industry as AI chipsets has been the key enabler. Processor, memory and network have to be ready for massive data analytics, according to the report.

In health care, growth in patient data due to the increasing adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs), and various advantages such as predictive analytics and risk management, are supporting the growth of the patient data and risk analysis segment.

The AI market for manufacturing is classified into various applications, such as material movement, predictive maintenance and machinery inspection, production planning, field services, reclamation and quality control. Increasing demand to reduce operational costs from early-life failure of machines is driving the growth of predictive maintenance and machinery inspection in the AI market.

AI is being extensively used in retail to make the shopping experience similar to what the customers are accustomed to in real life. In the retail AI market, various applications are product recommendation and planning, customer relationship management, visual search, virtual assistant, price optimization, payment services management, supply chain management, demand planning and others.

The AI market for cybersecurity has multiple applications, such as identity and access management (IAM), risk and compliance management, encryption, data loss prevention (DLP), unified threat management (UTM), antivirus/antimalware, intrusion detection/prevention system (IDS/IPS), and others.

AI in marketing is one of the biggest applications, mainly for media and advertising purposes. Analytics, consumer behavior prediction, digital assistants and automation are the major applications of AI in advertising.