• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, December 5, 2018

Companies of all shapes and sizes are facing the issues around deploying artificial intelligence, along with some solid expectations.

Many businesses are looking to AI as a way to increase value and are measuring ways to make it pay off, according to a new study by PwC.

The leading expectation from AI investments is to grow revenue and increase profit.

The study comprised a survey of 1,000 AI-savvy executives in the U.S., with 42% holding the title of C-level, president or partner and 74% of companies surveyed having revenue of $1 billion or more.

In addition to growing revenue, here's what companies expect from their AI investments:

• 48% -- Grow revenue and increase profits
• 46% -- Create better customer experiences
• 40% -- Improve decision making
• 39% -- Innovate products
• 38% -- Achieve cost savings

Business executives agree that AI will change business in 2019 and beyond, although it differs by industry. For consumer markets, the majority (52%) of executives see the top value as creating better customer experiences, while 45% are worried about new privacy threats and 40% see a challenge in training current employees to work with AI systems.

Companies are taking various steps for responsible AI. Here’s what they are doing in 2019 to develop and deploy AI systems that are trustworthy, fair and stable, according to PwC:

• 64% -- Boost AI security with validation, monitoring, verification
• 61% -- Create transparent, explainable, provable AI models
• 55% -- Create systems that are ethical, understandable and legal
• 52% -- Improve governance with AI operating models and processes
• 47% -- Test for bias in data, human use of algorithms
• 3% -- Have no plans to address these AI issues

Artificial intelligence is going to play a significant role in business going forward. More than a third (37%) of executives in the PwC study said ensuring that AI systems were trustworthy was their top priority. Not sure about that other 63%.