AI Market Expects Surprising 2024 Power Shifts Among Vendors, Futurum Intelligence AI Decision Maker Survey Shows

• Inaugural AI study surveyed over 1,000 AI decision makers in the enterprise, rating 159 vendors of AI Deployments

• While companies split halfway between those who outsource (52%) and those who insource (48%) AI deployments, 45% of companies who outsource plan to change their vendor choice in 2024

• 47% of organizations who insourced AI solutions such as cloud compute will change their vendor in 2024

• Primary AI deployment consultant / integrator is Accenture (25%) followed by Deloitte (14%)

• Companies who will invest $2M and up in AI solutions will triple in 2024

In its inaugural and first-of-its-kind study for the AI market, Futurum Intelligence released the findings of its AI In The Enterprise Decision Maker Survey. Conducted twice a year, Futurum Intelligence has independently ranked 159 vendors of AI deployments across tech enterprises, aiming to learn the current state of preferences towards products and vendors in near-term (12 months) buying plans.

Following a year of innovation and R&D in AI across cloud computing, SaaS, Embedded End-to-End, semiconductors and hardware, the market is now expected to yield signs of monetization among its players. The power centers of traditional IT vendors for the enterprise have naturally pioneered with their AI deployment offerings among their customers, but in 2024, enterprise decision makers intend to make some surprising changes.

“Following a year of innovation and R&D in AI, the market is now expected to yield signs of monetization among its players.”

Some of the most surprising power shifts can be found among the enterprises insourcing their AI deployments for AI Cloud Compute. In 2023 AWS ranks highest as select vendor (22%), followed by Microsoft, Google and IBM. Going into 2024, companies who’ve indicated exploring new vendor entries rank Google as their top new vendor for AI Cloud Compute (11.1%) followed by AWS and IBM.

In the AI Development Tools and Platforms category, insourcing companies who seek new vendor entrants rank Google as top choice (7.2%), while leap-jumping AMD as second highest ranked new paid vendor entrant (up from 5^th place), followed by AWS and IBM.

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Here are a few more key highlights from the study:

• Of those who outsource, 45% plan to change their vendors this quarter or early 2024
• For those who insource, 47% plan to change vendors
• Top decision criteria as well as criteria for ‘excellence in meeting requirements’ was found to be expertise and experience with AI (40% and 35% respectively)
• Failure criteria to meet requirements was found to be implementation speed and timeline and projected time to value (23% and 22% respectively)
• Among those who outsource, Accenture is selected as primary consultant / integrator by far (25%), followed by Deloitte (14%), CGI and KPMG
• Among outsourcing companies who deploy (paid) SaaS / Embedded for AI deployments, select vendors are Microsoft (21%), followed by Google (14%), AWS and IBM (13.5% and 10% respectively)
• In 2023 Microsoft leads as primary vendor in SaaS / Embedded AI (21%) followed by Google (14%)
• Within SaaS/Embedded, select vendors for End-to-End AI Applications rank AWS as primary vendor (21%) followed by Microsoft (19%), IBM and Google (15% and 10.5% respectively)
• Among companies who seek to change their choice of AI deployment vendor in 2024, Google and Microsoft rank almost evenly at 9.6% and 9.2% respectively, for SaaS/Embedded solutions while AWS and Google are the select choices for End-to-End solutions newly integrated in 2024 (7% and 5.5%)

Marc Beccue, AI Research Director at The Futurum Group was astonished by the amount of companies leveraging outsourced AI. “Given all the media attention to DIY-AI, I was a bit surprised at the percentage of organizations that are currently leveraging outsourced AI services, which we define as an end-to-end application, like a Nuance AI customer service automation, or SaaS/Embedded AI, such as Adobe’s Firefly, or Photoshop,“ he said. “52% are outsourcing in this way today, while 48% are primarily pursuing in-house development of AI. Our data clearly indicates that organizations are going to spread their AI investments in 2024, there are strong metrics for keeping vendors but also adding new ones,” he added.

“Not surprisingly, the market for SaaS/Embedded AI applications is highly competitive and fragmented,” said Keith Kirkpatrick, Research Director, Enterprise Applications. “While Google (10%) and Microsoft (9%) were the top two choices for organizations seeking to add new vendors in late 2023 or 2024, 13 other large SaaS vendors are each expected to garner interest from buyers, reflective of the variety of quality, enterprise-grade solutions that are successfully integrating AI within their platform,” he added.

Marc Beattie, Head of Futurum Intelligence, believes the market is exceptionally dynamic and the benefactors are customers and integrators. “AI vendors have been seeking credible intelligence on the plans and preferences of enterprise buyers that is both relevant and accessible,” he said, adding, “The AI Decision Maker IQ service enables competitive and market intelligence professionals to dig in at the vendor level or zoom out to the market level to learn critical insights to make better decisions on building and deploying their own products and services.”

Methodology

Survey was fielded in Q4 2023 between the week of September 25^th and October 2^nd, 2023. Line of Questioning (LOQ) – created and vetted by two expert Futurum Group AI analysts and a survey specialist. Responses were received and accepted online, reviewed and qualified by two expert Futurum Group AI analysts and a survey specialist.

N = 1,009 (sample size).
Panel: Decision authority or influence in the selection of vendors and products and services used in the deployment of AI within their organization, or the organization they consult to.
Qualifiers: Pre-survey, each respondent was screened and qualified; In-survey, each respondent was gated for access and qualified, each required to pass a mid-survey “trick” question, a timestamp was applied on crucial questions and the overall survey – all respondents were measured for minimum expected time required in-survey with speedy responses rejected.
Geography – United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France (translated for local language and spend offered in local currency – USD, GBP, EURO).

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