An IDC global survey of technology buyers found that ‘technology decision-making’, ‘financial and operational systems’, and ‘customer engagement, experience, and support’ are the three business areas where generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is most likely to impact their organisation's future competitive position or business model.
Geographical differences
While tech buyers in North America identified financial and operational systems as the business area most likely to be affected by GenAI, their counterparts in Western Europe indicated that IT and line of business (LOB) technology decision-making will see the most impact.
In Asia/Pacific, survey respondents felt GenAI would affect customer engagement, experience, and support the most.
"The survey results confirm that the application of GenAI across business functions will be broad and its impact will span a wide range of competitive and business model areas," said Matt Acaro, research director for Computer Vision AI Tools and Technology at IDC.
He also concluded that the results suggest that GenAI's ability to process, understand, and derive value from a wide range of data sources is its real superpower.
Matt Acaro
“This capability enables GenAI models and applications to be integrated and used within so many different business and customer processes and workflows. As organisations gain more experience with GenAI technologies, we expect them to use their knowledge to deploy GenAI in new areas."
Matt Acaro
Additional business areas
The survey included four other business areas for consideration: customer acquisition and sales; product design and development; data-driven decision-making; and talent and staffing. Customer acquisition and sales and talent and staffing were the two business areas considered least likely to be impacted by GenAI.
