State of IT in Europe 13 To Meet Business Needs, 19 IT Must Ramp up Its AI Readiness Although IT teams are enthusiastically embracing Business Units Place Big Bets on AI* the AI revolution, they may not be doing so fast In many cases, business units outside of IT anticipate greater growth enough to suit the rest of the business. Sales, in AI than their technical colleagues. service and marketing leaders in Europe all expect substantial growth in AI over the next few years, but many IT teams are still in the experimental phase. European Sales, Marketing, Service and IT Teams Expect Near-Term AI Growth European sales leaders anticipate 141% growth 140 in AI over the next two to three years, while marketing expects 55% growth over the next two 120 years and service leaders likewise expect 26% growth over the next 12–18 months.* However, 100 less than a quarter of European IT leaders say their technical (22%) and business (25%) 80 plans for AI are comprehensively defined. 60 This disparity could be fed by the current and anticipated skills gap in data science 40 — 81% of IT leaders in Europe are already experiencing or anticipating a skills gap within 20 two years. But IT teams that develop a greater understanding of how the company expects 0 AI to be applied across its business units will be a step ahead of the competition. Sales teams Marketing teams IT teams Service teams anticipate anticipate anticipate anticipate 141% 55% 28% 26% growth in AI over growth in AI over growth in AI over growth in AI over the next 36 the next 24 the next 12–18 the next 12–18 months months months months Salesforce Research *“State of Sales,” “State of Marketing,” and “State of Service,” Salesforce Research, 2016–2017.