Machine learning implemented by 68 percent of organizations

New research shows that 68 percent of chief technical officers (CTOs) have implemented machine learning at their company.

What's more the study, from software development company STX Next, reveals that 55 percent of businesses now employ at least one team member dedicated to AI/ML solutions, although only 15 percent have their own separate AI division.

The findings come from STX Next's 2021 Global CTO Survey, which gathers insights from 500 global CTOs about their organisation's tech stack and what they're looking to add to it in the future. It shows that 72 percent of respondents identify machine learning as the most likely technology to come to prominence in the next two to four years, with 57 percent predicting the same for cloud computing.

In addition 25 percent of CTOs report that they've implemented natural language processing, with 22 percent implementing pattern recognition and 21 percent applying deep learning technologies. 87 percent of businesses employ up to five people in a dedicated AI, machine learning or data science capacity.

Łukasz Grzybowski, head of machine learning and data engineering at STX Next, says:

The implementation of AI and its subsets in many companies is still in its early stages, as evidenced by the prevalence of small AI teams.

It's unsurprising to see machine learning as a definite leader when it comes to future technologies as its applications are becoming more widespread every day. What's less obvious is the skills that people will need to take full advantage of its growth and face the challenges that will arise alongside it. It's important that CTOs and other leaders are wise to these challenges, and are willing to take the steps to increase their AI expertise in order to maintain their innovative edge.

Deep learning is a good example of where there is plenty of room for progress to be made. It is one of the fastest developing areas of AI, in particular when it comes to its application in natural language processing, natural language understanding, chatbots, and computer vision. Many innovative companies are trying to use deep learning to process unstructured data such as images, sounds, and text.

However, AI is still most commonly used to process structured data, which is evidenced by the high popularity of classical machine learning methods such as linear or logistic regression and decision trees.

The full report is available from the STX Next site.

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