The deep natural language processing and understanding, AI-powered recommendations are no more a stuff of science fiction. These technologies have not only become a reality but are on its rise in present times. A recent IDG survey reveals that more than 70 percent of the respondents surveyed are already using cognitive technologies for various purposes and 63 percent plan to implement it by next year. The adoption of cognitive technologies has significantly accelerated in organizations with a great number of investments.

Let's have a glance at why and how such companies are investing in cognitive technologies and what is their goal to achieve from its adoption.

Objectives for Adoption

Nearly 54 percent of respondents believed that the topmost objective for the adoption of cognitive technologies is improving customer experience. Following this, around 44 percent of respondents cited that improving employee and end-user experience is the second most important reason for increasing interest in cognitive technologies. Interestingly, the whole concept behind these technologies is to streamline business processes and ensure users get information as per their demand.

Reduction in operation cost has been cited as the third most important reason for its adoption. According to Fabio Caversan, Artificial Intelligence Research & Development Director, North America, for Stefanini said, "The ultimate goal of any AI project is saving money and increasing efficiency through automation. We see it not as eliminating jobs, but as transforming business processes by augmenting human effort so people can be more proactive and get more done."

Monetary Resources

The survey revealed that only five respondents said that they have no plans to adopt or implement cognitive technologies either because of lack of appropriate use case, lack of internal expertise or lack of budget.

The remaining people reported that they have significant plans to invest in its implementation. On average such organizations are dedicating 16 percent of their company's budget to cognitive technologies. Around 85 percent of respondents said that the percentage of their investment allocated for this purpose is rising.

Some companies have dedicated slightly more of their cognitive technologies budget to long-term business transformation than to short-term goals.

According to Caversan, the budget allocation for digital transformation makes sense as AI projects designed to transform business processes often need custom-ML algorithms that take significant time and money to prototype and test. Comparatively, prebuilt applications that are designed to streamline existing business processes tend to be less costly and complicated.

Enriching Customer Experience

The survey exhibits that cognitive technologies will provide the most value to the improvement of customer experience specifically through better information management, personalization and proactive problem resolving methods.

Additionally, cognitive computing and AI-powered virtual agent with natural language capabilities would be quite valuable specifically for improving customer experience, enhance productivity, and reduction in costs. Organizations are more likely to employ such virtual agents for answering customer questions, processing orders, and assisting employees with internal tasks.

Caversan further stated, "To ensure the results that lead to better customer and user experiences, companies need to understand what AI can and can't do. It needs to be integrated with other systems to get data, it needs to be taught how to analyze and use that data to create micro-personalized experiences, and it needs to be capable of delivering those experiences across the channels your users prefer."