Artificial Intelligence Tool Penetration in Business: Adoption, Challenges and Fears

• Published in: Knowledge Management in Organizations Vol. 1027; pp. 259 - 270
• Main Authors: Schlögl, Stephan, Postulka, Claudia, Bernsteiner, Reinhard, Ploder, Christian
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2019; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Communications in Computer and Information Science
• Subjects: Artificial intelligence; Implementation challenges; Interview study; Technology adoption
• ISBN: 3030214508; 9783030214500
• ISSN: 1865-0929; 1865-0937
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-21451-7_22

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its promise to improve the efficiency of entire business value chains has been headlining newspapers for the last years. However, it seems that many companies struggle in finding the right tools and use cases for their distinct fields of application. Thus, the aim of the presented study was to evaluate the current state of machine learning and co in various European companies. Talking to 19 employees from various different industry sectors, we explored applicability of AI tools as well as human attitudes towards these technologies. Results show that AI implementations are still in their early stages, with a rather small number of viable use cases. Tools are predominantly bespoke and internally built, while off-the-shelf solutions suffer from a lack of trust in third party service providers. Although companies claim to have no intention of reducing the workforce in favor of AI technology, employees fear job loss and thus often reject adoption. Another important challenge concerns data privacy and ethics, which has grown in relevance with respect to recent changes in European legislation. In summary, we found that companies recognize the competitive advantage AI may attribute to their value chains, in particular when it comes to automation and increased process efficiency. Yet they are also aware of the rather social challenges, which currently inhibit the proliferation of AI-driven solutions.