PPB October 2019

It’s In The Cloud • The global public cloud computing market is set to reach $258 billion in 2019 • Organizations’ average yearly cloud budget was $2.2 million in 2018 • About a third of companies’ IT budget goes to cloud services • The average business runs 38 percent of workloads in public and 41 percent in a private cloud Source: HostingTribunal.com The World’s Biggest Cloud-Computing Spenders Here’s how much some countries will spend on cloud computing this year: 1 United States $124.6 billion 2 China $10.5 billion 3 United Kingdom $10 billion 4 Germany $9.5 billion 5 Japan $7.4 billion Source: IDC Market Snapshot Companies are forging into the future and embracing technology of all kinds. Nearly half (42 percent) of executives surveyed in Deloitte’s State of the Enterprise compendium say they believe AI will be of critical importance within two years. However, many of these companies face a talent shortage. One in five respondents says their organization lacks the skills of experienced AI software developers, data scientists, user-experience designers and change-management experts. More than half (54 percent) say the skills gap is the biggest challenge facing their organization. Forbes reports that the share of jobs requiring AI skills has grown 4.5 times since 2013. Chatbots, those software applications that mimic conversations with a human, are also hot on the technology trail. By 2020, Innovation Enterprise predicts that chatbots will power 85 percent of all customer service. More than half (63 percent) of people already prefer messaging an online bot to communicate with a business or brand, according to Mindshare. Companies that use chatbots can significantly slash business expenses—savings could top $8 billion by 2022, according to Impactbnd. AR is another fast-growing tech sector. In the future, shoppers will increasingly be able to get AI-based customer support while walking around a store. A chatbot can answer their questions about pricing, features or offers. Amazon currently gets 35 percent of its sales from its recommendation engine, which uses machine learning to deliver search results and match advertisers with customers, according to MobiDev. By 2023, the user base for AR products such as smart glasses will surpass 2.5 billion people, with the industry hitting $75 billion. Techno l ogy 52 | OCTOBER 2019 | GROW