Appen Limited released its 2024 State of AI report. The report surveyed over 500 IT decision-makers across a range of U.S. industries, revealing that while the adoption of AI technologies like machine learning (ML) and generative AI (GenAI) continues to grow, progress is being hindered by a shortage of accurate, high-quality data.
“Enthusiasm around GenAI and other AI-powered tech remains high, as indicated by the rapid growth, but users are quickly finding that the promise of these tools is matched by an equally daunting challenge,” said Si Chen, VP of Strategy at Appen. “The success of AI initiatives relies heavily on high-quality data, and this is becoming more difficult as AI use cases increase in complexity and become more specialized. This is reflected by the fact that high-quality annotations, meaning high consistency and accuracy, are the top features companies seek in a data annotation solution. Those building the AI tools and models of tomorrow value strategic data partnerships now more than ever.”
Appen commissioned Harris Poll to survey key IT decision-makers at U.S. enterprise organizations, including business leaders, data scientists, data engineers, and developers, to compile the 2024 State of AI report.
Key findings include:
- Data management as a top challenge: With the increasing complexity of AI use cases, data management has become the leading challenge. Companies report a 10% rise in bottlenecks related to sourcing, cleaning, and annotating data, a 9% drop in data accuracy, and a 7% increase in data availability challenges.
- High demand for external data providers: Over 90% of respondents seek partners with expertise across the full AI data lifecycle to enhance the quality and scalability of their AI systems, underscoring the essential role external data plays in sustaining AI initiatives.
- Prioritizing data diversity and bias reduction: 97% of respondents agree that data diversity, bias reduction, and scalability are vital components for building AI models. Custom data collection remains the top method for sourcing AI training data.
- Human insight remains critical: 80% of respondents emphasize the importance of human-in-the-loop processes, highlighting the vital role human oversight plays in refining AI systems.
For more findings from Appen’s 2024 State of AI report, download the full report
