IDC names IBM the market leader in AI

The AI market is growing significantly across the technology spectrum – software, hardware and services, according to IDC. "In 2018, IDC saw that organizations have been slowly moving from proof of concepts (POC) to full-blown production with the use of AI applications within the spectrum of business processes across the enterprise," said Ritu Jyoti, Program Vice President, Artificial Intelligence, at IDC.  

The new IDC report, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Market Shares, 2018 (full report available here), finds that the worldwide AI market grew 35.6% to $28.1 billion last year as a result of announcements, initiatives and acquisitions. IBM’s 9.2% was the lion’s share of the overall market. 

 

The ladder to AI 

 “As the AI market moves from experimentation to production, we're helping businesses integrate AI with their applications to make more accurate predictions, automate decisions and processes, and free up employees' time so they can focus on higher value work," said Beth Smith, General Manager, IBM Watson AI. 

What sets IBM apart? 

 

Information architecture  

The data environment in many government agencies is vast and complex with data assets in silos that can’t communicate with each other. And without a solid information architecture preparing that data for analysis, AI initiatives face real roadblocks.  As reported by IDC, IBM has made a critical commitment to information architecture with the launch of IBM Cloud Pak™ for Data. This Cloud Pak, aided with data virtualization, helps modernize the whole data estate to manage and ready data assets for AI—without moving them. 

 

Trust and transparency 

Both citizens and government IT leaders have valid concerns about data privacy and often are skeptical about the accuracy, any bias, data quality, integrity and fairness of AI models. The IDC AI report cites IBM’s announcement of Watson OpenScale to address bias detection and maintain trust and transparency in AI. 

 

AI anywhere  

As highlighted by IDC, in 2018, IBM AI applications brought to market a line of Watson solutions pretrained to a range of industries and professions. And with IBM’s recent acquisition of Red Hat Open Shift, Watson anywhere becomes reality. IBM Cloud Pak for Data on Red Hat OpenShift allows Watson microservices to run on a variety of environments from IBM cloud, to any public, hybrid, or multi-cloud environment. 

Artificial intelligence is a revolutionary technology that will change the way government agencies service citizens, enhance operational efficiencies, and improve public health and safety. 

For more information about IBM solutions for government, visit our website.