86% of IT leaders see generative AI as critical to their organizations

According to a recent Salesforce survey, 86 percent of IT leaders believe productive IT will be a critical component of their organization. The study also found that AI technology has now become mainstream, with 78 percent of IT and business leaders aware of its central role in their companies.

While generative AI has only become widely used in the last six months, 86 percent of IT leaders believe it will play an important role in their organization in the near future, according to the latest Salesforce State of IT survey.

Salesforce surveyed more than 4,000 IT leaders from the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe and found that despite ethical concerns in areas such as accuracy, bias, security, and privacy, most IT leaders believe that generative AI can increase productivity, efficiency, and innovation in their organizations.

IT leaders also believe that their business counterparts now have a better understanding of how to use artificial intelligence (AI) in their business operations.

AI generator tools such as GitHub Copilot, Replit, and Amazon CodeWhisperer are able to write, execute, and detect errors in code in an efficient manner. Additionally, a new plugin called Code Interpreter, when integrated with ChatGPT, can execute code and manage data science.

Artificial intelligence is now mainstream

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly popular in the IT industry, with the technology being referred to as a “rising star” in the IT industry. As such, most IT leaders (78%) are aware of the potential use of this technology in their organization, even if they have not yet implemented it.

Companies are “most likely” to use AI in customer service as a first step to enhance their customer experience. According to a survey conducted by Salesforce, AI implementation by customer service professionals will increase by 88% from 2020 to 2022.

Application development

Users now want better and faster digital experiences, which is driving the demand for apps. As a result, IT departments are receiving more requests for application development, both for internal use and for use by external users.

“Companies can buy software from vendors or develop their own software by dedicating a number of employees to create and customize it,” the report states. “About two-thirds of respondents prefer to buy software from vendors, but also dedicate internal staff to customize it.”

Half of organizations develop their own software in-house, and another 22% purchase and use pre-built software.

Low-code and no-code tools are widely used

As there is a growing demand for IT services, 77% of IT departments are using low-code and no-code tools to increase their efficiency. These tools can speed up the software development process and also delegate some IT tasks to non-IT employees.

Currently, 46 percent of IT leaders use hybrid initiatives to increase their departments’ performance. This means that they use a combination of technology and personnel, which can be modified if needed depending on the goals of the organization and external factors such as new technologies or seasonal workload.

In the next 18 months, 43% of the groups discussed plan to use a hybrid strategy.