How Seriously Does the U.S. Business Community Value AI?
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With the AI wave sweeping the globe this year, AI has already become the top investment priority for business leaders.
A recent survey by KPMG of 400 U.S. CEOs shows that more than two-thirds of them rank investing in generative AI as their company's top priority.
"This is not hype," said Paul Knopp, U.S. Chair of KPMG. "This will be disruptive, and CEOs are paying close attention."
The AI boom triggered by OpenAI's ChatGPT at the end of last year quickly swept through the U.S. business world. Just last week, Amazon announced a $4 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic; Meta began rolling out new generative AI tools for advertisers, and Zoom launched AI products to compete with tech giants Microsoft and Google.
Goldman Sachs predicts that AI investment will accelerate rapidly, reaching around $200 billion globally by 2025. In the long term, Goldman Sachs believes AI-related investments could account for up to 4% of U.S. GDP.
Brent Thill, a senior analyst at Jefferies, recently stated in an interview that as corporate spending shifts toward AI, he sees Microsoft, Amazon, and Google as the likely winners—though he cautioned that this is far from a "zero-sum game."
While excitement about AI is evident and businesses are prioritizing it, these investments may take time to yield returns.
KPMG's survey found that 62% of CEOs expect to see returns on AI investments within three to five years, while 23% anticipate returns in one to three years.
"AI investment is still in a fairly early stage, with today's spending primarily focused on ideation," Knopp added. "We will see more and more generative AI use cases across many different industries. This will be disruptive, as you can see from our CEO survey."