Generative AI benefits will only be realised by 30% of Asia Pacific firms that have more mature IT practices, according to Forrester’s 2024 predictions.
Generative AI benefits include enhanced productivity, greater operational resilience, superior customer experience, and business model innovation the firm said.
Though most APAC firms see generative AI as a lever for productivity improvement, their real stumbling block is a risk-averse culture and inadequate data management capabilities, Forrester pointed out.
Highlights from Forrester’s 2024 predictions
- APAC firms will struggle to operationalise customer trust. Doing right by customers earns their trust and loyalty, but not many firms have taken this effort seriously and imbued it within their corporate culture. By the end of 2024, 25% of APAC’s largest companies will vocalise their strategic commitment to customer trust, but only 5% will effectively codify that commitment through measurement and organisational KPIs.
- CX will improve for the first time in years, thanks to generative AI. The key to CX improvements in 2024 will be behind-the-scenes generative AI that helps customer service agents answer questions faster and better, resolve CX issues on first contact, and leave customers feeling heard.
- Agencies will invest in custom AI solutions for enterprise clients. In 2024, the top 10 advertising agencies will spend a combined $50 million in partnerships to build custom AI solutions that enable their clients to scale personalised marketing campaigns and brand experiences.
- Enterprise AI initiatives will boost productivity and creative problem-solving by 50% in the year ahead. Generative AI is poised to increase productivity across all IT roles — not just among developers. Additionally, business, technology, and marketing leaders’ investment in genAI in the year ahead will augment employees’ creative problem-solving time by up to 50% — driving customer-centric innovation and creating greater business value.
- Clouds will launch prompt engineering services — to no avail. Cloud hyperscalers will announce either a preview or the general availability of prompt engineering, the process of structuring text so that it can be understood by a generative AI model. Enterprise adoption, however, will be limited: 80% of enterprises will add prompt engineering talent internally to drive model grounding and value delivery.
- Regulators will have generative AI in their sights. An app using ChatGPT will be fined for how it handles personally identifiable information. Companies will need to identify apps that increase their risk exposure while also increasing investments in third-party risk management.
“In 2024, Asia Pacific is bracing itself for a year of exploration and potential growth, with generative AI at the centre of it all,” said Frederic Giron, VP and senior research director at Forrester. “Generative AI benefits and the technology’s potential and potential of generative AI, combined with a new wave of technological innovations, will inspire more APAC tech and business leaders to follow in the footsteps of early trailblazers and fuse the power of AI with their transformation efforts to drive business outcomes.”
