Companies in Latam accelerate the use of artificial intelligence | by Marta Reyes | Jun, 2024
Research from IBM found that 67% of organizations in Latin America have accelerated their implementation of AI, especially for digital tasks, automation of IT processes and marketing, although a lack of skills remains a barrier.
67% of organizations with more than 1,000 employees in Latin America accelerated the use of AI in the last 24 months, a figure that is above the world average, which is 59%, according to the findings of the “IBM Global AI Adoption Index 2023”, carried out by Morning Consult for IBM.
“In the region, we are seeing companies of all sectors and sizes move from experimenting with AI to making new investments to further leverage the benefits it brings. This demonstrates the great opportunity that exists to explore new use cases, taking advantage of the improvements it can generate, keeping trust and governance at the center, co-creating with the ecosystem and empowering professionals to build the future together. The potential is immense,” said Tonny Martins, general manager of IBM Latin America.
The index also shows that Latin American companies are open to the use of generative AI, as 37% are actively implementing this technology, and 45% are already exploring it.
Other major findings from the research include:
The barriers. Following the global trend, the biggest barrier to the adoption of AI in companies in the region is limited skills, experience and knowledge in this technology (32%). However, to address this problem, 38% of Latin American companies plan to invest in workforce training and development over the next 12 months.
Ethics. In Latin America there is a strong awareness about ethical AI and responsibility among companies. 90% of IT professionals agree or somewhat agree that consumers are more likely to choose services from a company that offers transparency and an ethical framework for how their data and AI models are built, managed and used. 92% also said that having the ability to govern data and AI across the entire lifecycle is an important aspect of trust and explainability in AI.
The uses. The research also highlights the most common use cases for AI among Latin American companies currently exploring or implementing AI. Some of them include: digital workforce (39%), IT process automation (36%), and marketing and sales (35%). On the other hand, some uses in early stages of adoption were: health diagnosis (8%), environmental risk analysis (10%) and sustainability (16%).
It should be noted that the research was conducted in November 2023, among 8,584 IT professionals in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States United States and LATAM (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru).
