The United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranks first in the region in terms of enterprise adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) applications with an annual growth rate of 33.5 percent, according to a report by the Dubai Technology Entrepreneurship Campus (DTEC).
The report, titled "Artificial Intelligence Adoption in Enterprise 2018," was unveiled Tuesday at the DTEC Forum for Emerging Technology Companies at DTEC in Dubai Silicon Oasis.
While the report predicts that AI adoption will account for 45 percent of the world economy's total gains by 2030, the UAE ranks first in the Arab world in terms of expected annual growth of AI contribution to the economy at 33.5 percent, followed by Saudi Arabia at 31.3 percent, the rest of the GCC region at 28.8 percent, and Egypt at 25.5 percent.
The report compares levels of adoption of AI solutions among companies in the region and the world.
The document also outlines strategies and mechanisms for implementing AI solutions at the institutional level, in addition to highlighting internal and external incentives that encourage companies to adopt these solutions.
The report quotes Global Economy Watch's 2017 forecasts that the contribution of AI to the global economy will increase to 15.7 trillion U.S. dollars by 2030, and that AI will contribute 96 billion U.S. dollars (13.6 percent) to the UAE GDP by 2030.
It identified multiple solutions AI can offer to companies, including operational applications, automation of robotic operations, reengineering of business processes, blockchain, big data analysis for marketing, customer care and data management, as well as using neural programming in talent search.
The report lists three priority areas for enterprise adoption of AI solutions: AI for operation enhancement, AI for customer service enhancement, and AI for growth strategy support.
The document identifies the main factors that can have a positive or negative effect on the adoption of AI applications among companies and institutions, such as cost-benefit ratio, key trends that dominate the field, and budget availability.
It also outlines the concerns of entities regarding AI, primarily the risk of security breach, data leaks, privacy threats, job replacement, lack of knowledge required by suppliers, and the absence of regulatory frameworks in many countries.
