Retail will lead the way in spending on artificial intelligence systems, according to IDC, investing $5.9 billion worldwide this year in chatbots, automated purchase advisors and product recommendations.
Overall spending on AI systems is projected to reach $35.8 billion in 2019, up 44 percent over last year, and will more than double to $79.2 billion in 2022. The U.S. will deliver nearly two-thirds of that spending.
The AI use cases that will see the most investment this year are automated customer service agents ($4.5 billion), sales process recommendation and automation ($2.7 billion), and automated threat intelligence and prevention systems ($2.7 billion), said IDC.