Worldwide Spending on Cognitive and Artificial Intelligence Systems to Reach $12.5 Billion in 2017: IDC

A new update to the Worldwide Semiannual Cognitive Artificial Intelligence Systems Spending Guide from International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts worldwide revenues for cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI) systems will reach $12.5 billion in 2017, an increase of 59.3 percent over 2016.

Global spending on cognitive and AI solutions will continue to see significant corporate investment over the next several years, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54.4 percent through 2020 when revenues will be more than $46 billion.

"Intelligent applications based on cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, and deep learning are the next wave of technology transforming how consumers and enterprises work, learn, and play," said David Schubmehl, research director, Cognitive Systems and Content Analytics at IDC.

From a technology perspective, the largest area of spending in 2017 ($4.5 billion) will be cognitive applications, which includes cognitively-enabled process and industry applications that automatically learn, discover, and make recommendations or predictions.

Cognitive/AI software platforms, which provide the tools and technologies to analyze, organize, access, and provide advisory services based on a range of structured and unstructured information, will see investments of nearly $2.5 billion this year.

Spending on cognitive-related IT and business services will be more than $3.5 billion while dedicated server and storage purchase will total $1.9 billion. Each of these areas will experience strong growth throughout the forecast, led by cognitive applications with a five-year CAGR of 69.6 percent.

The cognitive/AI use cases that will see the greatest levels of investment this year are: Quality Management Investigation and Recommendation Systems; Diagnosis and Treatment Systems; Automated Customer Service Agents; Automated Threat Intelligence and Prevention Systems; and Fraud Analysis and Investigation.

Combined, these five use cases will deliver nearly half of all cognitive/AI systems spending in 2017. By the end of the forecast, slower spending on Diagnosis and Treatment Systems will drop it to the number 5 position. The use cases that will experience the fastest spending growth over the 2015-2020 forecast period are Public Safety and Emergency Response (85.5 percent CAGR) and Pharmaceutical Research and Discovery 74.2 percent CAGR).

(For more information visit www.idc.com).