This is not hype, according to Paul Knopp, chair of KPMG US (see video above). “It will be disruptive, and CEOs are paying close attention.”
OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT late last year served as the catalyst for the AI boom, which has now spread throughout corporate America. Amazon (AMZN) announced a $4 billion investment in AI firm Anthropic last week, Meta (META) started releasing new generative AI tools for advertisers, and Zoom (ZM) introduced AI technologies to compete with Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT), both of whom have sponsored OpenAI.
By 2025, Goldman Sachs estimates that global investments in AI would increase quickly and reach about $200 billion. According to Goldman, long-term investments in AI might reach a peak of 4% of US GDP.
While cautioning that it’s far from a “zero-sum game,” senior analyst at Jefferies Brent Thill recently said on Yahoo Finance Live that he believes Microsoft, Amazon, and Google would benefit as corporate spending turns to AI.
While there is no doubt that businesses are excited about AI and are giving it top attention, it might take some time before those investments start to pay off.
According to a poll by KPMG, 62% of CEOs anticipate seeing a return on their AI investments in three to five years, while only 23% do so in just one to three.
“AI investments are still at a fairly nascent stage at the moment, and today’s investments are largely around ideation,” Knopp stated. In many different industries, generative AI will be used more frequently. You can see from our CEO survey that it will be disruptive.