Technical forecaster Forrest It was found that nearly half of the Asian managers surveyed want their full-time remote workforce to increase permanently; many people will seek to use artificial intelligence-enhanced workforce participation tools to try to increase communication in the workplace to reduce the resulting new distance.

As part of the Global AI Agenda 2021 plan, MIT Technology Review Insights and Cornerstone OnDemand jointly surveyed more than 1,500 senior decision makers and technology leaders to understand how AI can be used to accelerate revenue growth and digital collaboration in organizations in Asia and the world. And enhance human resources capabilities.

AI, from top to bottom

Globally, more and more companies are deploying AI tools and analysis to improve manufacturing productivity, help employees understand customer needs more accurately, and support business results. Like many technology adoption strategies, digital insights have traditionally been viewed as a bottom-line tool—for example, greater visibility across the supply chain allows manufacturers to quickly determine where to cut costs. Like many strategic pivots in the past 18 months, the impact of covid-19 has accelerated this process.

Alan Tate, executive chairman of the MIT Sloan School of Management CIO Symposium, called this a “big reset: a company undergoes two years of digital transformation in two months.” Although he acknowledged that “the use of artificial intelligence to improve efficiency and reduce costs is probably the most common use case now, but the use of data that supports artificial intelligence is quickly becoming a key way for many companies to increase revenue.”

Our global survey of corporate artificial intelligence adoption strategies confirms this view: Nearly half of the respondents said that they have either deployed artificial intelligence to achieve revenue growth or are accelerating to achieve this goal. A quarter of people plan to increase the use of artificial intelligence in top plans, and only 12% say it is just a tool for cost control.

The views of Asian respondents largely echo global trends, but they also reveal a region that is also behind the curve and ready to surpass it. Respondents in Asia said that the current use of artificial intelligence in terms of income growth is below the global average, but it is more likely to adopt a “top” artificial intelligence program, with more than one-third planning to increase its use.

There is increasing emphasis on “top-line” artificial intelligence, which usually supports customer-facing teams and promotes business expansion by increasing customer insights. This, in turn, drives efforts to build capabilities for marketing and business development professionals, such as enhancing their work processes and acting as a catalyst for skills development. On average, compared with the global average, Asian respondents are slightly more concerned about the revenue growth performance of artificial intelligence project deployment (see Figure 2).

Organizations that focus on “bottom line” artificial intelligence initiatives (in the cost efficiency and resource optimization category) are more likely to seek to add automation capabilities and drive operational change, which may lead to redefining tasks for operations and internal teams.

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This content was produced by Insights, the custom content division of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by the editors of MIT Technology Review.