'Businesses that aren't adopting AI today might be putting themselves at risk of falling behind
Thirty per cent of Canadian companies are regularly employing AI platform ChatGPT to improve operations, compared to two-thirds (65 per cent) of U.S. companies, according to new research by KPMG in Canada.
“Canadian organizations are trailing behind their U.S. counterparts when it comes to AI adoption, and it comes at a time when developments in the space are moving fast, particularly in generative AI,” says Benjie Thomas, Canadian managing partner, advisory services at KPMG Canada.
When it comes to how these companies are using AI, 41 per cent of Canadian operations are putting it in place for call centres, while that incidence is much greater south of the border at 67 per cent.
The survey heard from 250 companies in Canada and the U.S. about AI in February, with 90 based in Canada and 160 in the U.S.
“Generative AI can be powerful if used correctly and responsibly, and it enables businesses to be more efficient, productive and competitive. Canadian businesses that aren’t adopting AI today might be putting themselves at risk of falling behind, especially as competitors south of the border continue to advance in this field,” says Thomas.
Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms to produce content quickly, whereas regular artificial intelligence is much broader in scope, and various forms have been used by organizations in health care, education, law enforcement and financial services, according to KPMG.
As many as 300 million full-time jobs are at risk of being lost due to AI, found another survey.
Lack of internal capability
Skilled talent is holding back some Canadian operations, says KPMG as 47 per cent of respondents reported they don’t have in-house expertise when it came to verifying output of AI, while another 44 per cent said their data was either too big or too small or had other issues such as being improperly formatted.
“Large organizations are sitting on vast amounts of data but to make that data work effectively for them, they need to properly assess the quality of their data first. Without that, their journey towards being AI-ready will be rocky, so the first step for any organization thinking about adopting AI is: ‘Get your data ready,’” says Zoe Willis, partner and national data and digital lead, KPMG Canada.
To fully take advantage of AI, organizations should consider the following steps for organizations to achieve AI readiness, says Willis:
- Compile a full inventory of data
- Assess how accurate, relevant and recent the data is
- Identify outstanding data gaps, and potential for future data gaps
- Evaluate, locate and map out where data sits within the organization
- Determine who has access to the data, and how well-equipped they are to analyze it
“Without quality data, AI algorithms are susceptible to output that is biased, incorrect, misleading and unreliable, and the consequences for businesses include errors that lead to poor business decisions,” says W9illis.
Legal experts recently spoke with Canadian HR Reporter about the need for workplace policies for ChatGPT.
Responsible framework lacking
Forty-three per cent of Canadian organizations have implemented responsible AI frameworks (versus 72 per cent in the U.S.), while only half feel that their organization strictly adheres to it (70 per cent in the U.S.).
“This highlights a critical need for more organizations to adopt responsible AI frameworks, but also mechanisms to help stick to those frameworks,” says Kareem Sadek, partner, advisory, IT & emerging technology risk leader.
“Monitoring, evaluation and continuous evolution are also crucial to any responsible AI framework. Artificial intelligence is evolving quickly — as we’ve seen with ChatGPT, for example — so organizations need to have AI models that are effective, long-lasting but also agile enough to adapt to the world around them. Organizations that don’t do this will be less competitive and trustworthy and will eventually fall behind,” he says.
