Successful Australian mid-market organisations are more likely to put a high priority on generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) than those who are seeing lower revenue growth – and they are adopting new AI innovations in every corner of their business, according to a recent study by SAP.
Business AI is the biggest opportunity for businesses in Australia today, according to SAP Australia and New Zealand head of AI, Dr. Kim Oosthuizen.
“But the benefits of Business AI are not only restricted to larger enterprises. Every organisation can realise the opportunities that AI offers in a relevant, reliable and responsible manner. That isn’t just summarising emails and creating images. It’s helping us complete the tasks we don’t want to do, providing insights quickly and reliably helping solve business problems,” she said.
Adopting Gen AI is a medium or high priority for 90% of Australian businesses, while adopting standard business applications of AI like machine learning for data analysis and predictive analytics was a top priority for 88%. Other key priorities include preparing for cybersecurity threats, making operations more environmentally sustainable and addressing gaps in supply chains (all 89%).
Artificial intelligence is seen as a priority to transform organisational processes in every corner of the business. Half of mid-market organisations in Australia place a high priority on AI to transform their data security and privacy (50%). Other high priority areas include creating new business models (48%), implementing agile processes (47%), optimising supply chains (45%), boosting decision-making (45%) and personalising user experiences (45%).
AI is already in use to a moderate or strong degree in mid-market Australian businesses to gather market intelligence (85%), as well as to monitor for cybersecurity threats, detect fraud, monitor regulatory compliance, develop forecasts and budgets, and automate recruitment processes (all 84%).
“AI is not new. In fact, we’ve been using it for decades. More than 27,000 customers are already using SAP Business AI today, including hundreds in Australia,” Oosthuizen said.
“We’ve released more than 70 Generative AI use cases in the past year, and we expect more than 100 use cases to be available by the end of 2024. We’re making AI accessible for all businesses today. The time to explore the benefits of Business AI is now.”
In Australia, the top three best use-cases for AI in finance is forecasting and analysis (33%), summarising investment portfolio performance (29%), conducting fraud detection (28%) as well as tax and regulatory compliance mandates (28%).
Data is cited as an organisational risk when it comes to AI. Mid-market businesses in Australia said the biggest risks to their company from AI were acting upon incorrect information (35%), finding and retaining talent (33%), insufficient data size and quality (33%) and lack of transparency in results (32%).