Gartner Poll finds ChatGPT has prompted an increase in AI Investment

In a recent Gartner poll of more than 2,500 executive leaders, 45 percent reported that the publicity of ChatGPT has prompted them to increase artificial intelligence (AI) investments. Seventy percent of executives said that their organization is in investigation and exploration mode with generative AI, while 19 percent are in pilot or production mode.

The poll was conducted among 2,544 respondents as part of a Gartner webinar series in March and April 2023 discussing the enterprise impact of ChatGPT and generative AI. Results of this poll do not represent global findings or the market as a whole. 

“The generative AI frenzy shows no signs of abating,” said Frances Karamouzis, Group Chief of Research & Distinguished Analyst at Gartner. “Organizations are scrambling to determine how much cash to pour into generative AI solutions, which products are worth the investment, when to get started and how to mitigate the risks that come with this emerging technology.”

The poll found that 68 percent of executives believe that the benefits of generative AI outweigh the risks, compared with just 5 percent that feel the risks outweigh the benefits. However, executives may begin to shift their perspective as investments deepen.

“Initial enthusiasm for a new technology can give way to more rigorous analysis of risks and implementation challenges,” said Karamouzis. “Organizations will likely encounter a host of trust, risk, security, privacy and ethical questions as they start to develop and deploy generative AI.”

Despite ongoing economic headwinds, only 17 percent of executives indicated cost optimization as the primary purpose of generative AI investments. Customer experience was the most common primary focus of investments, cited by 38 percent of respondents.

As organizations begin experimenting with generative AI, many are starting with use cases such as media content improvement or code generation. While these efforts can be a strong initial value-add, generative AI has vast potential to support solutions that augment humans or machines and autonomously execute business and IT processes.

“Autonomous business, the next macro-phase of technological change, can mitigate the impact of inflation, talent shortages and even economic downturns,” said Karamouzis. “CEOs and CIOs that leverage generative AI to drive transformation through new products and business models will find massive opportunities for revenue growth.”

Marketing and media are already feeling the impacts of generative AI. Gartner expects that by 2025, 30 percent of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be synthetically generated, up from less than 2 percent in 2022.