IA, spending in EMEA will increase by two-thirds in 2024

AI spending by businesses in the EMEA region will grow by 61% in 2024, with 97% of organizations investing in generative AI or planning to do so. It is one of the elements that emerge from the research presented today by Lenovo and contained in the new ‘CIO PlayBook 2024: It’s all About Smarter AI’. The report confirms that for 40% of respondents, AI represents a “game changer” and while generative AI may have sparked the current industry boom, all forms of AI are reaping the benefits. In fact, an equal percentage of investments is destined for generative artificial intelligence (25%) as for interpretative artificial intelligence (25%) and machine learning (25%).

Almost all European businesses are incorporating generative AI projects into business strategies, processes and offerings. Around two-thirds (57%) of companies have already invested in AI and a further 40% plan to do so during the year, while only 3% have no intention of activating AI projects. EMEA enterprises plan to implement AI strategies in hybrid (48%) or private (24%) cloud, with only 17% opting for public cloud, as a result of stringent data privacy regulations, in particular in continental Europe.

Interest in AI varies from industry to industry, although most agree on its potential. Manufacturing companies are the most enthusiastic, with 47% seeing AI as a “game changer.” Telcos are the least enthusiastic (22%), as leaders in this sector have already invested significantly in AI in recent years. The majority of companies in every sector have already invested in generative AI, with half (50%) of government organizations having done so, rising to 65% in telco and 67% in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI). Across industries, there is also broad recognition of the importance of edge computing in developing AI projects, with organizations across every industry increasing investment, by 29% in manufacturing and 60% in operations. telecommunications.

While enthusiasm for the adoption of AI technologies is uneven across the EMEA region, Italy has the lowest percentage (2%) of CIOs who consider AI “a distraction.” As proof of this data, Italy is the market together with the Netherlands with the highest rate of investments in generative AI already planned (68%) – while in EMEA the average stands at 56%. Not only that, Italy is the market in which there is the least difficulty in hiring staff with AI skills (34%), compared to an average in the region of 55.3%. As regards 2024, the most relevant trends for Italy show a 40% growth in investments in edge technologies, slightly higher than the EMEA average (38%) with the main investments in generative AI projects, infrastructure modernization and HPC platforms. Furthermore, 7 out of 10 companies have already planned investments in Gen AI, 30% will do so in 2024 and only 2% are not planning to do so.

The biggest technological challenge of generative AI, cited by 40% of respondents, is model capacity limitations (in terms of training data models, which can require large amounts of computing power and data resources) , followed by concerns about the potential misuse of generative AI and AI “hallucinations” (37%) – understood as systems providing incorrect information. Other technology challenges cited by CIOs include finding a reliable data platform (36%) and using third parties (35%) to develop generative AI. At the organizational level, the most cited issue related to generative AI was cultural, involving employee fears about moving the workplace (40%), followed by IT challenges (45%), including resistance from of IT that is not accustomed to implementing ever-evolving AI tools and technologies.

As Giovanni Di Filippo, EMEA President of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, points out, “we are at a point where artificial intelligence is becoming a reality for organizations in every territory and every sector. CIOs are enthusiastically embracing the potential not only of generative AI, but also of interpretive AI, and will need to make the right technology investments and the right partnerships to maximize the value of AI for their companies.”