Appen recently released The 2021 State of AI and Machine Learning report, highlighting the prevailing approaches to data management and security, responsible AI, and the significant role played by external data providers in advancing progress.
According to the survey, a majority of companies accelerated their AI strategy in 2020 as a result of COVID-19 and will continue to do so in 2021.
Besides exploring the priorities, successes, and bottlenecks while implementing AI this year, the survey also investigated the usage of external data providers, examining how this growing trend impacts the delivery of AI.
Here are 6 key takeaways from the report:
- To implement and update AI projects at scale, a vast majority of organizations have partnered with external training data providers—a reflection of the fact that data collection, preparation, and management are the top challenges AI practitioners face.
- “Collaborating with an external data provider makes companies be 1.4x more likely to value responsible AI.” The survey discovered a strong emphasis on data diversity, bias reduction, as well as scalability. While data bias and scaling are major concerns, especially in larger companies, data diversity is the top priority across organizations.
- Companies that work with an external training data provider have larger budgets ranging from $500k to $5 million when compared to those that do not.
- Organizations that use external data providers are far more likely to deploy AI in production and generate meaningful ROI, the survey showed.
- To have a successful model and avoid data drift, it is critical to update and retrain AI models. Around 87% of organizations are updating their models regularly ,with 91% of large organizations updating at least once a quarter.
- Companies report a high commitment to data security and privacy. Companies that use external data providers are 1.8 times more likely to say they are excellent at addressing AI privacy and security issues, and nine times less likely to say they are poor at it. Most data providers include security and compliance checks to ensure data privacy.
Access the full report here: The 2021 State of AI and Machine Learning Report
