IBM은 23일 최근 ‘인공지능의 투자수익(ROI)’ 보고서를 발표하며 기업들이 장기적인 관점에서 AI에 투자하고 있고, 향후 ROI와 혁신을 도모하기 위해 오픈소스 도구를 사용하는 데 관심이 높아지고 있다고 밝혔다.

▲IBM 'ROI of AI' report graph / (Graph: IBM)
85% of corporate IT decision makers have AI strategies planned for 2024
IBM recently released a report on the 'Return on Investment (ROI) of Artificial Intelligence' on the 23rd, stating that companies are investing in AI from a long-term perspective and that there is increasing interest in using open source tools to pursue future ROI and innovation.
The report is the result of a survey of more than 2,400 IT decision makers (ITDMs) worldwide, including Korea, conducted by global research firms Morning Consult and Lopez Research, and 85% of respondents said they have implemented their planned AI strategies by 2024.
A whopping 47% of companies are already seeing a positive ROI from their AI investments, 33% say they’ve broken even, and only 14% say they’re seeing a negative ROI.
When calculating the ROI of AI investments, respondents chose the following three metrics as most important: increased software development speed (25%), increased innovation speed (23%), and time savings from improved productivity (22%). Monetary/quantifiable cost savings came in fourth place at 15%.
It was also found that using open source tools in AI solutions can lead to greater financial performance in terms of ROI. Fifty-one percent of responding companies currently using open source AI tools are seeing a positive ROI, compared to just 41% of those not using open source.
Forty-eight percent of respondents said they plan to leverage the open source ecosystem to optimize their AI implementations, and two out of five respondents who aren’t using open source plan to do so by 2025.
Companies are expected to continue to increase their investments in AI. Eighty-nine percent of companies surveyed said they plan to increase or maintain their investments in AI in 2025. Only 5 percent said they plan to reduce their AI spending.
AI investments were focused on specific areas. 63% of respondents (multiple responses) cited IT operations as their top priority, followed by data quality management (46%) and product/service innovation (41%).
“As many companies begin to deploy AI on a large scale, they are focusing on metrics like productivity gains because the ROI benefits are still difficult to reflect on the financial statements,” said Maribel Lopez, founder of Lopez Research. “However, companies continue to rapidly evolve their AI strategies, and there is no sign of that slowing down.”