• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 2, 2022

IT decision makers at media and entertainment companies view artificial intelligence  and machine learning as the “ most mission critical” technologies to their business strategies according to a new study from Rackspace Technology, a provider of cloud technology services. 

Sixty-four percent of the media and entertainment IT decision makers cited AI and ML as key although cybersecurity and cloud computing were close at 63% and 62% respectively, the Rackspace study found. 

AI/ML are being used by media/entertainment organizations in a wide variety of contexts, including improving the speed and efficiency of processes (52%), gaining competitive edge (46%), increasing revenue (44%), personalizing content, and understanding marketing effectiveness (43%), understanding customers (41%), and predicting performance (40%). 

But challenges remain as 37% of media/entertainment respondents cite immature AI/ML technologies and 32% identify difficulties aligning AI/ML strategies to the business. That said, 65% of those respondents said their AI/ML projects have gone past the experimentation stage and are now either in the "optimizing/innovating" or "formalizing" states of implementation. Most organizations are also citing a wider range of use cases, including computer vision applications, automated content moderation, customer relationship management, and biomedical applications. 

The company’s survey, conducted by Coleman Parkes Research last fall, is based on responses from 1,870 IT decision makers across a number of sectors. In addition to media/entertainment, those sectors included retail, energy, hospitality/travel among others. 

Among the broader group of respondents, AI and ML were also seen as the top two most important strategic technologies for their businesses followed closely by cybersecurity. 

Seventy-one percent of respondents in media/entertainment say they are employing AI/ML as part of their business strategy, IT strategy or both, while 64% are allocating between 6% and 10% of their budget to AI/ML projects. This compares to a reported spend (as a percentage of overall budget) of between 1% and 10% in last year’s survey. 

From a talent perspective, more than half of respondents said they have necessary AI/ML skills within their organization. But more than half also say that bolstering internal skills/hired talent and improving both internal and external training are on their agenda. 

“As AI/ML budgets continue to increase, we are seeing projects proliferate across more areas of the organization, and it’s clear that the AI/ML is advancing in its importance and visibility,” said Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technology Evangelist, Rackspace Technology. “At the same time, the research makes clear that many organizations still struggle with getting stakeholder buy-in, addressing issues of data quality, and finding the skills, resources and talent to take advantage of the AI/ML’s full potential.” 

The full report can be accessed here.