Microsoft Study: AI’s Growing Impact on Business and the Workplace
Updated December 9, 2024: Microsoft has helped train and certify 23 million individuals over the past year through various initiatives.
In 2024, generative AI has emerged as a critical driver of business outcomes across nearly every industry. This new generation of AI is already having a substantial impact globally, and businesses are just beginning to explore the full potential of this technology as they develop new applications across all roles and functions. To help guide organizations through their AI transformation, Microsoft commissioned a new study through IDC, titled The Business Opportunity of AI. IDC’s findings reveal that the return on investment (ROI) potential grows significantly when companies fully commit to and invest in AI. According to IDC, these findings represent a tipping point as AI gains momentum within various industries.
As companies worldwide delve deeper into AI, Microsoft customers continue to deploy innovative new solutions, discovering how tools like Copilot can transform their daily work. For example, in the telecommunications sector, Lumen Technologies estimates that Copilot saves its sellers an average of four hours per week, which equates to $50 million annually. In healthcare, doctors at Chi Mei Medical Center now spend 15 minutes instead of an hour writing medical reports, and nurses can document patient information in under five minutes. Pharmacists are now able to double the number of patients they see daily. In retail, AI models help Coles predict the flow of 20,000 stock-keeping units to 850 stores with considerable accuracy, generating 1.6 billion predictions daily.
IDC’s 2024 Top 5 Trends for AI
IDC’s findings align with what Microsoft is observing as they work with companies across various industries to deploy AI. Microsoft has highlighted over 200 of its top AI customer stories to showcase how AI is already driving an impact today. The following are the top trends identified in IDC’s study and the impact of those trends on organizations using AI.
1 Enhanced Productivity Has Become Essential
Employee productivity is the number one business outcome that companies are trying to achieve with AI. The study indicates that 92% of the AI users surveyed are using AI for productivity, and 43% say that productivity use cases have provided the greatest ROI. While productivity is a primary goal, generative AI use cases that are close behind include customer engagement, topline growth, cost management, and product or service innovation. Nearly half of the companies surveyed expect AI to have a high degree of impact across all of these areas over the next 24 months.
Customer snapshot: At the global marketing and advertising agency dentsu, employees are already saving 15 to 30 minutes each day using Copilot for tasks such as summarizing chats, generating presentations, and building executive summaries. “Copilot has transformed the way we deliver creative concepts to our clients, enabling real-time collaboration. Agility, security, and uniqueness are crucial, but our goal is to lead this transformation company-wide, from top to bottom,” said Takuya Kodama, Business Strategy Manager at dentsu.
2 Companies Are Gravitating to More Advanced AI Solutions
Over the next 24 months, more companies expect to develop custom AI solutions tailored directly to their industry needs and business processes, including custom copilots and AI agents. This reflects a growing maturity in AI fluency as companies recognize the value of out-of-the-box use cases and expand to more advanced scenarios.
Customer snapshot: Siemens has developed the Siemens Industrial Copilot, which has eased the challenges caused by increasing complexity and labor shortages for dozens of customers in different industries. “In full appreciation of GenAI’s transformational potential, it’s important to remember that production does not have an ‘undo’ button. It takes diligence and effort to mature AI to industrial-grade quality. The Siemens Industrial Copilot for Engineering significantly eases our customers’ workload and addresses the pressing challenges of skill shortages and increasing complexity in industrial automation. This AI-powered solution is a game-changer for our industry with over 50 customers already using it to boost efficiency and tackle labor shortages,” explained Boris Scharinger, AI Strategist at Siemens Digital Industries.
3 Generative AI Adoption and Value Is Growing Across Industries
Even though it is relatively new to the market, generative AI adoption is rapidly expanding. 75% of respondents report current usage, up from 55% in 2023. The ROI of generative AI is highest in Financial Services, followed by Media & Telco, Mobility, Retail & Consumer Packaged Goods, Energy, Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Education. Overall, generative AI is generating higher ROI across industries.
Customer snapshot: Providence has leveraged AI to extend and enhance patient care, streamline processes and workflows, and improve the effectiveness of caregivers. “Whether we’re partnering with organizations on the leading edge of this technology — like Microsoft — and building bespoke solutions through Azure OpenAI Service, advancing clinical research to help cancer patients receive personalized and precise treatments faster, or ‘hitting the easy button’ and adopting established technologies like Microsoft 365 Copilot or DAX Copilot, we have successfully stayed on the forefront of this tech revolution. For example, physicians who use DAX Copilot save an average of 5.33 minutes per visit, and 80% of physicians have reported lower cognitive burden after using DAX Copilot,” said Sarah Vaezy, EVP, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer at Providence.
4 AI Leaders Are Seeing Greater Returns and Accelerated Innovation
While companies using generative AI are averaging a 3.7x ROI, the top leaders using generative AI are realizing significantly higher returns, with an average ROI of 10.3x. In addition to enhanced business value, leaders are also on an accelerated path to build and implement new solutions; 29% of leaders implement AI in less than 3 months, compared to only 6% of companies in the laggard category.
Customer snapshot: Södra is an international forest industry group processing forest products from 52,000 owners into renewable and climate-smart products for the international market. Every day, Södra collects and interprets climate impact data to make thousands of decisions for every part of the value chain. “With innovative AI technology from Microsoft, our business experts and data scientists have been able to help make us more sustainable while also improving revenue significantly,” said Cristian Brolin, Chief Digital Officer at Södra.
5 Looking Ahead: Skilling Remains a Top Challenge
Thirty percent of respondents indicated a lack of specialized AI skills in-house, and 26% say they lack employees with needed skills to learn and work with AI. This aligns with findings from the Microsoft and LinkedIn 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report, which found that 55% of business leaders are concerned about having enough skilled talent to fill roles. That is why, over the past year, Microsoft helped train and certify over 23 million people in more than 200 countries in digital skills. Microsoft is committed to working in partnership with governments, educational institutions, industry, and civil society to help millions more learn how to use AI.
Customer snapshot: The University of South Florida (USF) is partnering with Microsoft to streamline processes and enhance innovation for all aspects of university operations with AI. “We’re giving students a leg up to do amazing things with AI as part of tomorrow’s workforce. Our focus on generative AI not only drives operational efficiency but also empowers our community to unlock new levels of creativity and impact, further positioning USF as a leader in AI adoption, which includes being among the first universities in the nation to form a college dedicated to AI, cybersecurity, and computing,” notes Sidney Fernandes, CIO & VP of Digital Experiences at the University of South Florida.
AI’s Growing Economic Impact
While companies today are largely implementing out-of-the-box generative AI solutions and seeing significant ROI, more than half of those surveyed expect to build custom industry and line-of-business applications in the next 24 months, demonstrating that today’s ROI is quickly becoming tomorrow’s competitive edge. “We are at an inflection point of autonomous agent development and are beginning an evolution from using just off-the-shelf assistants and copilots that support knowledge discovery and content generation to custom AI agents to execute complex, multistep workflows across a digital world,” said Ritu Jyoti, GVP/GM of AI and Data Research at IDC. “With responsible technology usage and workplace transformation, IDC predicts that business spending to adopt AI will have a cumulative global economic impact of $19.9 trillion through 2030 and drive 3.5% of global GDP in 2030.”
Key Findings from the IDC Study
The Business Opportunity of AI study revealed the following key findings:
- Generative AI usage jumped from 55% in 2023 to 75% in 2024.
- For every $1 a company invests in generative AI, the ROI is 3.7x.
- Top leaders using generative AI are realizing an ROI of 10.3x.
- On average, AI deployments are taking less than 8 months, and organizations are realizing value within 13 months.
- Within 24 months, most organizations plan to expand beyond pre-built AI solutions to advanced AI workloads that are customized or custom-built.
- The ROI of generative AI is highest in Financial Services, followed by Media & Telco, Mobility, Retail & Consumer Packaged Goods, Energy, Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Education.
- 43% say productivity use cases have provided the greatest ROI.
- The primary way that organizations are monetizing AI today is through productivity use cases.
- In the next 24 months, a greater focus will be placed on functional and industry use cases.
- The top barrier when implementing AI is the lack of both technical and day-to-day AI skills.
Learn How to Further Your AI Journey
IDC’s study, which included more than 4,000 business leaders and AI decision-makers around the world, also identifies the top barriers organizations face when implementing AI. As businesses integrate new solutions, they navigate important considerations such as data privacy, responsible use, and the need for investment in technology and skills. Microsoft can help, no matter where you are in your cloud and AI transformation journey.
To learn more about how customers across industries are shaping their AI transformation with Microsoft, visit Microsoft’s AI in Action page. For more on how to get started in your AI transformation journey, visit Microsoft AI.
