Top 3 Benefits of AI Projects

Determining the benefits for artificial intelligence (AI) projects is difficult and confusing, but increasingly important. By 2024, 50% of AI investments will be quantified and linked to specific key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure return on investment.

Organizations often ask about the benefits they can expect from deploying AI to begin with, so Gartner collected over 100 use-case examples of AI deployments from nearly 40 vertical industries during the past 18 months to sift out the top-cited benefits. Success in AI depends on considering both its tangible and intangible benefits and determining how to meaningfully quantify them.

Not surprisingly, the top benefits cited within these use cases are largely consistent with the top sources of business value for AI through 2030: Cost reduction and customer experience.

Read more: Gartner Predicts the Future of AI Technologies

While AI investments that reduce risk are clearly valuable, they are hard to quantify. When defining benefits, leaders should ensure a clear link between each benefit and the relevant business KPIs. A critical element in understanding benefits is defining how they will be measured. To do so, Gartner recommends that KPIs be defined before the AI project is deployed (as a baseline) and again after project completion to determine the resulting benefit compared to the baseline. 

Identify the sources and types of benefits for each AI project by classifying the best methods for measuring success, noting that many projects have multiple benefits. This then enables more-effective project prioritization and justification.