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Planning Ensures AI Adoption Delivers Real Value Lucidworks Finds

Taylor Graham — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 15:00:09 +0000

Lucidworks published the findings of its second annual Generative AI Global Benchmark Study, the largest ongoing study of its kind worldwide. The survey gathered insights from business leaders in North America, EMEA, and the APAC region who are actively engaged in generative AI initiatives. The report examines critical areas of investment in generative AI and tracks the progress organizations are making in adopting this technology.

Flattened Spending Points to More Thoughtful Planning

Generative AI’s explosive growth is cooling as businesses face cost and security hurdles. Global AI spending plans are down sharply, with only 63% planning increases (vs. 93% last year). USA-based organizations remain above average with 69% planning to increase AI spend. While investment remains high, more companies are prioritizing thoughtful planning to balance the potential of this new technology with managing risks and costs.

Deployment Delays Stall ROI

Despite initial hype, slow deployment and low success rates are commonplace, with only 25% of planned projects fully implemented. This lag is stalling anticipated ROI, with 42% of companies yet to see a significant benefit from generative AI initiatives. Tech and retail sectors stand out with higher deployment and realized gains, but overall, most industries are slow to move beyond the pilot phase.

Implementation Costs Raise Alarms

Security remains a top concern for business leaders, but cost worries have surged 14x in the past year. Additionally, concerns around response accuracy have risen 5x, likely due to issues with hallucinations. This highlights the need for careful large language model selection to balance cost and ensure accurate, secure results.

Practical Applications Are First to Deployment

Businesses are using generative AI to establish clear guidelines for AI use (governance) and automate tasks like generating first drafts of code (reducing G&A costs). This trend is driven by concerns around data privacy, security, and skyrocketing implementation costs. Qualitative applications like generating FAQs are seeing success, but more complex quantitative applications like fraud detection in financial services or predictive maintenance in manufacturing are lagging behind. The ability to analyze unstructured data and generate actionable insights holds the greatest potential for generative AI’s future value.

“The initial wave of enthusiasm for generative AI is being met with a more strategic approach,” said Mike Sinoway, CEO, Lucidworks. “Businesses are recognizing the potential of this technology, but they’re also cautious about the risks and costs. This is reflected in the flattened spending, which suggests a shift toward more thoughtful planning. This planning ensures AI adoption delivers real value, balancing the need to stay competitive with managing costs and potential risks.”

The 2024 benchmark study also includes the following findings:

Across all organizations, 36% of leaders plan to keep spending flat, compared to only 6% in last year’s survey
Only 49% of Chinese leaders plan to increase AI spending in 2024, a massive drop from 100% in 2023
Close to 70% of financial services companies plan to increase spending over the next 12 months, followed closely by tech at 68% and B2C retail at 64%
Roughly 20% of companies report significant delays during deployment with only one in five planned revenue and growth initiatives and one in eight OpEx cost reduction initiatives implemented
Retailers have some of the highest concerns around cost (63%), likely due to the required responsiveness and high number of customer queries
Nearly eight in 10 companies use commercial LLMs and 21% have opted for open source only
A third of business leaders feel like they’re falling behind competitors despite almost everyone struggling to implement this new technology

Download the complete 2024 Generative AI Global Benchmark Study here to learn industry trends, top concerns, best practices and planning insights.

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Largest Generative AI Benchmark Study Published by Lucidworks

Taylor Graham — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 13:00:49 +0000

Lucidworks published results from the largest, global generative AI benchmark study that surveyed over 6,000 employees involved in AI technology decision-making. Read the full study here for the complete analysis of results and the 80 identified generative AI Best Practices.

The benchmark study shows that 93% of companies plan to increase their investments in AI within the next twelve months. 100% of Chinese companies and 98% of Indian companies are preparing to increase their generative AI investments, edging out the 92% of U.S. companies and 94% of United Kingdom and 95% of French companies that plan to invest. Despite the widespread enthusiasm to invest in generative AI, the average company has launched only 7.5 of the 80 identified best practices. The technology sector leads the way with an average of 10.7 best practices employed.

Companies across industries that do not plan to increase investments in generative AI have quadruple the number of concerns with the technology compared to those who do plan to invest. The companies that are hesitant to increase spending on AI are more cautious due to concerns around the security of company data, the accuracy of AI-generated outputs, transparency in understanding how AI-based decisions are made, job displacement, and ensuring responsiveness in terms of timeliness and tone.

“Now is the time to understand the strategy and operational opportunities of generative AI,” Mike Sinoway, CEO, Lucidworks. “The fundamental shift that is occurring is rapid, global, and highly impactful. This study confirms the emergence of generative AI industry leaders and laggards, and those that move swiftly to orient their practices can move ahead quickly.”

The benchmark study also includes the following findings:

Companies in the entertainment, technology and consumer products industries are frontrunners in plans to increase generative AI spending, followed closely by construction / real estate, financial services, and transportation.
Roughly 96% of executives and managers involved in AI decision processes from technology or data science departments are actively prioritizing generative AI investments.
Technology and entertainment / media companies are the most advanced practitioners of generative AI, with 21% being classified by Lucidworks as “AI Leaders,” double every other industry.
The professional services, government, hospitality and tourism sectors are lagging in their adoption of generative AI, each with fewer than 6 out of 80 best practices deployed.
Global business leaders are predominantly directing their investments in AI toward three key areas: improved customer experience, automation and efficiency, and overall business operations.

Lucidworks’ global benchmark study offers valuable insights for businesses planning to invest in generative AI. Through a comprehensive assessment of Implemented, Planned, and Desired Best Practices, the study enables companies to construct a tailored generative AI roadmap according to their industry. Lucidworks has plotted industries based on four distinct phases of progression along the investment and deployment journey—Trailblazer, Leader, Challenger, Rookie—to help companies gauge their level of maturity in generative AI adoption, identify potential challenges and opportunities, and strategize their efforts accordingly.

Download the full benchmark study HERE and learn more about Lucidworks at the website HERE.

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Enhancements Made to Lucidworks Fusion Search Platform and Lucidworks AITM

Taylor Graham — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 10:00:55 +0000

Lucidworks released enhancements to its Fusion platform and Lucidworks AITM. Lucidworks can now seamlessly integrate with any large language model (LLM) and provide the necessary guardrails to validate Generative AI (Gen AI) responses, ground them in truth, and minimize errors such as hallucinations. The company also released Neural Hybrid SearchTM, a capability that makes it easier to understand a user’s intent, and Smart RankTM, a dynamic ecommerce browse solution that automates content and results ranking based on a user’s context, region, operating industry, and navigation path.

Recent Gen AI tools such as Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Vertex.ai make AI search capabilities even more accessible and create new opportunities to build best-in-class digital experiences. Lucidworks Fusion integrates with LLMs to reduce time-to-value and seamlessly integrate the most advanced Gen AI technologies. Clients rely on Lucidworks Fusion to create the necessary guardrails and enrichments—security trimmings, data enrichment, content exclusion, and merchandising optimization—while getting the most value from the latest AI technologies.

“Generative AI has created massive opportunities for businesses that are under economic and competitive pressure to deliver a digital experience that is both best-in-class and cost-effective,” said Mike Sinoway, CEO, Lucidworks. “Lucidworks AI sets the standard in commercially viable applications of AI in search experience management. We are working with multiple clients on Gen AI deployments that accelerate time-to-value and provide the necessary guardrails to ensure generative AI responses are accurate, secure, and personalized.”

Lucidworks AI now includes the following capabilities:

AI orchestration capabilities (*currently in closed beta) allow organizations to manage LLMs easily in a standardized place and way. This is made possible with LLM-powered keyword extraction, summaries, retrieval augmented generation, improved embeddings model training and deployment, and semantic vector search with pre-filtering, integrated with Lucidworks AI-hosted embeddings models
Generative AI-based search enrichment solutions powered by integrations with LLMs
Guardrails for LLMs and generative AI including controls, security trimmings, data enrichment, content exclusion, merchandising and experience optimization
Lucidworks AI expert services, model training, best practices, and AI benchmarking

Lucidworks also announced the following enhancements to its Fusion platform:

Neural Hybrid Search: a unique search methodology that utilizes semantic neural networks combined with traditional lexical search techniques. Neural Hybrid Search is part of the Managed Fusion Platform, and not only analyzes keywords in a search query, but also the meaning associated with them to provide more accurate and relevant results. This combination provides a more intelligent search experience that can better adapt to users’ needs.

Smart Rank: a new browse solution that allows organizations to automatically personalize the buyer experience based on industry, line of work, or segmented region. Smart Rank drives higher conversion rates and expedites time-to-value for result, category, and navigation pages by ranking content and items that are relevant to a shopper.

Lucidworks announces additional enhancements for search signal beacons, actionable insights capabilities, and consumption status monitoring. These technology and service enhancements make enterprise search experience management easier for clients.

“The advances we’re making with Lucidworks Fusion are setting the pace for the rest of the industry,” said Sinoway. “Generative AI is one of the greatest opportunities that our clients are eager to use. These new AI enhancements and features allow Lucidworks customers to drive the KPIs that matter while staying ahead of the competition.”

To learn more about Lucidworks AI visit the website HERE.

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