1. AI being put to multiple uses during COVID-19 pandemic

AI is hard at work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Top uses include looking for signs of infection in lung CT scans, monitoring body temperatures with wearable sensors and supporting an open-source data platform for tracking spread of the disease, according to a March 2020 report from the European Parliamentary Research Service.

2. Sector with the most AI startups? Healthcare
The healthcare sector is seeing the greatest number of AI startups, followed by retail/warehousing, and transportation, according to this year’s rankings from machine intelligence platform provider CB Insights.

3. Hype about AI’s effectiveness against coronavirus ‘outstrips reality’

Hype around AI’s usefulness during the COVID-19 pandemic currently “outstrips the reality”, Will Douglas Heaven, senior editor for AI, writes in the MIT Technology Review. He attributes this to a lack of adequate information due to limits in public health data, diagnostic testing and our current understanding of the disease.

4. Business sees growing demand for AI skills for marketing, sales

The highest demand globally for AI skills is not in IT departments but, rather, in other areas of business, including marketing, sales, customer service, finance, and research and development. This has held true over the last four years, said the analyst Gartner.

5. Finance execs foresee widespread adoption of AI over next 2 years

Among senior financial services executives around the world, 64 per cent expect to see mass adoption of AI in their organisations within the next two years, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. Only 16 per cent of organisations use AI to that degree today.

6. Asia leads AI use in commercial real estate

Adoption of AI technology in the commercial real estate sector is highest in Japan (56 per cent), Singapore (53 per cent), Hong Kong (50 per cent) and China (48 per cent), with real estate investment trusts embracing the technology more than any other type of company, said a Deloitte survey of 750 commercial real estate executives across 10 countries.

7. Healthcare sector lags in AI ethics governance

Just 36 per cent of healthcare organisations have adopted an AI code of ethics. When it comes to developing a code of ethics for AI use, the healthcare sector lags behind several other key industries – including financial services, transportation and technology – according to a KPMG survey.

8. Fears of lost jobs, but also belief in AI ‘for good’

A survey of 2,000-plus adults in the UK by the AI company Fountech found 67 per cent of respondents worry that jobs will be lost due to artificial intelligence, while 62 per cent believe AI will be a force for good.

9. ‘Healthy skepticism’ needed for AI pandemic applications

Using AI to summarise thousands of research papers now being written about COVID-19 could help speed up medical discoveries about the disease, although it’s too soon to tell if such applications could have a meaningful impact on the current pandemic, The Brookings Institution cautions in an April 2 report.

10. Vast majority of organisations plan to implement AI by 2022

The AI analyst Cognilytica found nearly 90 per cent of organisations plan to have some kind of AI implementation in progress within the next two years, when it surveyed businesses and government organisations. Planned adoption rates are similar across different regions of the globe.

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