Artificial Intelligence (AI) worldwide - Statistics & Facts

Artificial intelligence, referring to the creation of intelligent hardware or software, able to replicate "human" behaviors such as learning and problem solving, is a field of computer science that has been the subject of people’s imaginations and science fiction movies for decades. Although the term was coined by Stanford professor John McCarthy in 1956, it has become a commonplace term, often portrayed in movies by robots that act like humans in various contexts – from robots overthrowing their human masters to societies where robots and humans live side by side. Fiction aside, artificial intelligence is no longer limited to movie screens; it is part of people’s daily lives. Artificial intelligence already allows machines to complete various "human" tasks, from driving automobiles and reacting to their environment, to providing virtual assistance, to playing games. Robots are already used widely in numerous industries, and are projected to spread throughout the consumer market in the next few years.

The applications for artificial intelligence are effectively limitless, and this field of computer science is extremely promising. Worldwide revenue from the AI market is projected to increase tenfold between 2017 and 2022. Companies, particularly from software and information technology services industries, are investing heavily in artificial intelligence. At the same time, AI-focused startups have been gaining momentum and attention from investors, with the funding of AI-startup companies nearly doubling from 2013 to 2015. The majority of startup companies working in the AI market are focusing on applications for machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence which allows computers to learn without human assistance. At last count, at least 260 startups have been founded to work on this particular AI category. Many startups have also bet on the natural language processing market, which involves voice and speech recognition and text prediction, to name a few applications. This particular AI market is forecast to grow by 28.5 percent in 2017.

Another important market within the artificial intelligence industry is big data. The term "big data" describes the enormous amount of data that inundate businesses on a constant basis, as well as the industry which has grown around attempts to collect, analyze, and act upon that data. The ability to harness big data effectively allows businesses to make faster, smarter decisions and improve short- and long-term strategic planning. Due to the size and complexity of these massive data sets, artificial intelligence is seen as one of the answers to finding meaningful answers within the sea of data available. Revenue from big data and business analytics worldwide added up to 122 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. By 2020, this figure is forecast to pass the 200 billion U.S. dollar mark for the first time.

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