Wednesday, October 9, 2024

How Much Might Generative AI Boost Productivity Across Industries?

According to Bank of America equity analysts, AI impact on productivity is going to vary. Most industries--but not all--should see productivity gains of two percent or less over the next five years, with a handful of industries supplying infrastructure expected to outperform.


As you might expect, software and semiconductor industries will lead the list of winners, with software profit margins gaining as much as five percent and semiconductors gaining nearly five percent. 


source: Bank of America Institute 


Healthcare and telecom were laggards, despite some claims that telcos are deploying generative AI faster than the other industries, at least according to telco firm survey respondents who were technology C suite or IT heads at about 1600 global organizations. 


Ignoring the obvious self interest technology leaders have in claiming they are moving rapidly to adopt generative AI and AI, the point made by the Bank of America analysis, which was produced by industry-specific financial analysts, is that actual outcomes related to productivity might be relatively modest in most instances, at least over the next five years. 


One problem is that some industries are likely positioned to improve productivity at faster rates than others, with or without GenAI, perhaps because they already are better positioned to deploy new technology to boost outcomes. 


 

source: SAS


The other caveat is that since knowledge worker productivity is notoriously difficult to measure, such surveys might be looking at other matters, such as firm agility, industry adaptiveness to new technology or industry growth rates in general, which are higher in some industries than others. 


Industry

Revenue Growth Rate

Technology

8-12%

Healthcare

5-10%

E-commerce

10-15%

Financial Services

4-8%

Renewable Energy

12-20%

Real Estate

3-6%

Consumer Goods

2-5%

Telecommunications

1-4%

Automotive

2-3%

Travel and Hospitality

6-10%


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