Stanford University’s latest report, AI Index, provides useful insights into the progress of AI.

According to the report, Singapore, Brazil, Australia, Canada, and India experienced the fastest growth in AI hiring from 2015 to 2019.

US economy and AI

However, in the US, the share of jobs in AI-related topics increased from 0.26% of total jobs posted in 2010 to 1.32% in October 2019.

AI by job-type

The highest share of that went to Machine Learning (0.51% of total jobs), says an article in Forbes. Artificial Intelligence jobs (0.28%), Neural networks (0.13%), NLP (0.12%), Robotics (0.11%), and Visual Image Recognition (0.10%) followed.

AI by Sector

AI labor demand is growing especially in high-tech services and the manufacturing sector. Tech service sectors like Information have the highest proportion of AI jobs posted (2.3% of the total jobs posted), followed by Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (over 2%), Finance and Insurance (1.3%), Manufacturing (1.1%), and Management of companies (0.7%).

The report observed, however, that the traditional services sector, including healthcare and construction, was lagging in demand for AI jobs.

AI by State in the US economy

The report also provides statewide data. The state of Washington has the highest relative AI labor demand, it said. Almost 1.4% of total jobs posted are AI jobs. California has 1.3%, Massachusetts 1.3%, and New York 1.2%. Further, the District of Columbia (DC) had 1.1%, and Virginia 1% online jobs posted in AI.

AI by Investment

In 2019, global private AI investment was over $70B, with AI-related startup investments over $37B, M&A $34B, and IPOs $5B.

Globally, investment in AI startups grew at a rapid clip. From a total of $1.3B raised in 2010 to over $40.4B in 2018 (with $37.4B in 2019 as of November 4th). Funding has, therefore,  increased at an average annual growth rate of over 48%.

AI by application

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) received the largest share of global investment over the last year with $7.7B (9.9% of the total), followed by Drug, Cancer, and Therapy ($4.7B, 6.1%), Facial Recognition ($4.7B, 6.0%), Video Content ($3.6B, 4.5%), and Fraud Detection and Finance ($3.1B, 3.9%).

US economy: Corporate AI

More than half (58%) of large companies surveyed reported adopting AI in at least one function or business unit in 2019. That metric was up from 47% in 2018.

Moreover, on risks from AI, nearly half of companies (48%) said cybersecurity was the top concern they were seeking to mitigate. Regulatory compliance (35%), and privacy (30%) were the other top risks.

However, in a sobering observation on ethical concerns, the report observed: “Only 19% of large companies surveyed say their organizations are taking steps to mitigate risks associated with explainability of their algorithms, and 13% are mitigating risks to equity and fairness, such as algorithmic bias and discrimination.”

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