global ai adoption grew steadily over the last year says a market research commissioned by ibm the study claims to underscore that ai growth is poised to accelerate as it continues to mature becoming more accessible and easier to implement other data points from the global ai adoption index 2022 conducted by morning consult on behalf of ibm reveal that this growth was due to companies recognizing the value of ai as they emerged from the challenges of the covid19 pandemic and invested in their digital transformation while dealing with talent and skills shortages in fact the study shows that ai adoption was up 4 percentage points compared with 2021the report also polled companies about their plans to use ai in their sustainability initiatives and found that ai is poised to play a significant role 66 of it professionals surveyed said that their company is either currently applying ai or plans to apply ai to accelerate esg initiativeshere are the key highlights from the report global ai adoption is growing steadily and most companies already use or plan to use ai today 35 of companies reported using ai in their business compared with 2021 organizations are 13 more likely to have adopted ai in 2022 additionally 42 of companies report they are exploring ai large companies are more likely than smaller companies to use ai chinese and indian companies are leading the way with nearly 60 of it professionals in those countries saying their organization already actively uses ai compared with lagging markets like south korea 22 australia 24 the us 25 and the uk 26 it professionals in the financial services media energy automotive oil and aerospace industries are most likely to report their company has actively deployed ai while organizations in industries including retail travel and governmentfederal services and healthcare are the least likely setting clear data and ai strategies are key for horizontal deployment a major explanation for gradual ai adoption is the need to implement a successful data management strategy and applying ai to that data achieve business goals companies that have not deployed ai are three times as likely to say that they have little to no confidence their company has the proper data management tools today 37 of companies are developing an ai strategy 28 already have a holistic strategy in place and 25 have a strategy that is focused only on limited or specific use cases automation is helping address skills gaps labor shortages more than costs lack of tools or project or data complexity the skills gap remains the biggest barrier to ai adoption at the same time ai is also helping organizations address skills shortages for example by automating tasks for skilled workers so they can be more productive or by using aiassisted learning or employee engagement almost oneinfour companies are adopting ai because of labor or skills shortages and 30 of global it professionals say employees at their organization are already saving time with new ai and automation softwaretools