ChatGPT took the world by storm after its explosive launch in November 2022, and in 2024, the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution certainly isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Every day, businesses are finding new ways to use AI to save themselves time and money, with the latest AI statistics reflecting the technology’s meteoric rise.
Over the last twelve months, the AI market has grown exponentially. Google launched its own Chatbot, Bard, in March 2023, while companies like monday.com and Wix have incorporated similar technology into their existing product infrastructures.
In this article, you’ll find 29 must-know statistics relating to the growth of AI, how it’s being used in the workplace, and the future of AI in the business world. Below are the top AI statistics you should know for 2024:
The Top AI Statistics for 2024
- In August 2023, OpenAI’s ChatGPT registered more than 180 million unique visitors (Reuters)
- 47% of business leaders will consider using AI to carry out tasks over hiring new staff (Tech.co)
- The artificial intelligence market is estimated to be worth over $638 billion by 2024 (Precedence Research)
- ChatGPT costs around $700,00 per day to keep running, covered by Microsoft’s investment (The Information)
- 77% of consumers now use an AI-powered device, but only 33% think that they do (Pega)
What Is AI?
AI – which stands for artificial intelligence – refers to the wide range of “intelligent” behaviors and functions exhibited by machines, computers, or other technology – many of which are skills typically associated with human intelligence.
Importantly, many artificial intelligence systems can “learn” or adapt to novel scenarios without following explicit instructions. This is called machine learning. ChatGPT and Bard have machine-learning capabilities.
Machines or systems with artificial intelligence capabilities are usually built to solve problems, answer questions, help with planning, leverage data more efficiently, and complete complicated and time-consuming tasks at a quicker pace than humans can.
AI Job Replacement Statistics
1. Artificial intelligence is expected to create 133 million new jobs by 2030 (McKinsey)
Let’s start off with the good news. Although there’s a lot of talk about the negative impact AI may have on jobs, some sources, such as McKinsey, predict that millions of new roles will be created as they’re gradually incorporated into existing business infrastructures. But this isn’t the only study about AI replacing jobs that’s been released recently.
2. Almost 25% of jobs are expected to be “disrupted” by AI over the next five years (World Economic Forum)
The World Economic Forum predicts that a quarter of all jobs will be disrupted by the rapid adoption of AI over the next half-decade. The organization says that there will be 14 million fewer overall jobs in 2028, with 83 million roles vanishing yet only 69 million being created.
3. Artificial intelligence could already replace the equivalent of 300 million jobs (Goldman Sachs)
This much-written-about figure made the headlines back in March, around the same time that Google’s AI chatbot, Bard, was released.
Goldman Sachs says that the rapid changes to our economy spurred on by AI development and adoption could drive “a 7% (or almost $7 trillion) increase in global GDP and lift productivity growth by 1.5 percentage points over a 10-year period.” The multinational bank also says that around two-thirds of US jobs are currently “exposed” to automation.
4. 78% of legal occupations are now influenced by AI, more than any other occupation (Forrester)
As you can see from the graph below, the legal world has been influenced by AI more than any other field, with life, physical, and social occupations in a distant second. Office and administrative occupations – which many people believe to be the most at-risk category of job roles – came in third.
Source: Forrester 2023 Generatvie AI Impact Forecast
5. Low-paid workers are fourteen times more likely to be replaced by AI than high-paid workers (McKinsey)
McKinsey’s “Generative AI and the Future of Work in America” report reveals that workers on low wages are around 14 times more likely to be forced to make career changes due to the development of AI-powered tools and systems.
As Tech.co’s Conor Cawley wrote in a recent article discussing the findings, “these won’t be lateral moves. Given that lower-wage jobs will likely be automated out of existence, these employees will need to be reskilled in a major way, requiring substantial investment from organizations and businesses to address the labor needs of the new world.”
Artificial Intelligence Growth Statistics
1. The AI market is expected to experience an annual growth rate of 37.3% from 2023 to 2030 (Grand View Research)
Grand View Research explains that the “essential fact” that’s seeing the AI market grow rapidly is the datasets accessible to companies building LLMs. “Technology has always been an essential element for these industries,” the research organization explains, “but artificial intelligence (AI) has brought technology to the center of organizations.”
2. By 2030, the artificial intelligence market is projected to be worth over $1.3 trillion (Markets and Markets)
AI really is here to stay – and companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have not found it difficult to secure various rounds of seed funding to continue their research and improve their large language models. With AI set to play an increasingly pivotal role in business operations, it’s not surprising that the market is set to grow exponentially over the next next seven years.
3. More than 1 in every 4 dollars invested in US-based startups during 2023 went to AI companies (Crunchbase)
Crunchbase has revealed that the share of overall investment making its way into the bank accounts of AI startups in 2023 is 25%. This is a huge uptick from the 12% they received on average during the four years (2018-2022) prior, another sign that AI is going to dominate the tech industry during the next decade.
Source: Crunchbase
4. AI will give China a 26% boost to GDP by 2030, while North America will receive a 14.5% boost (PwC)
According to consulting and auditing firm PwC, it is China that will economically benefit the most in the foreseeable future from AI. Overall however, AI could add $15.7 trillion to GDP by 2030 – which is higher than the GDP of India and China combined.
AI in the Workplace Statistics
1. 82% of business leaders think it’s okay to use AI to write responses to colleagues (Tech. co)
Only a very small percentage of business leaders think that it’s wrong if staff members start to use AI to write responses to colleagues. While 8.8% said it was a bad practice outright, another 8.8% said that it depended entirely on the type of message being sent.
2. Generative AI such as ChatGPT in business operations improves workers’ performance by 66%, averaged across 3 case studies (NN Group)
Three different case studies – focusing on customer service agents, business professionals in report-heavy roles, and programmers coding software – all found that AI tools like ChatGPT improve workers’ performance.
The NN Group says that support agents using AI handled 13.8% more customer inquiries every hour, while business professionals who used AI could write 59% more documents every hour. Programmers, on the other hand, benefitted the most, coding 126% more projects per week thanks to AI.
3. 56% of businesses cite “inaccuracy” as the greatest risk AI poses to their organization (McKinsey)
Out of all the risks posed by AI, businesses are most worried about inaccuracies – or “hallucinations” – generated by AI tools. However, cybersecurity and intellectual property theft rank highly too. Concerningly, the number of companies working to mitigate these risks is a lot lower than the number of companies that identify them as so.
Source: McKinsey’s State of Generative AI in 2023 report.
4. 22% of companies have adopted AI primarily to address labor shortages (IBM)
The same IBM report details that 20% of respondents said they were adopting AI due to environmental pressures, while 31% referenced competitive pressure.
5. 65% of companies are using AI internally, while 74% are testing it (Deloitte)
The vast majority of companies have officially jumped on the AI bandwagon. A huge proportion of companies are using AI internally and an even larger percentage claiming to be “testing” the technology. So, there’s a very small percentage who are yet to explore what AI can do for them.
AI Ethics Statistics
1. 68% of business leaders think it’s unethical for employees to use AI tools without the permission of a manager (Tech.co)
According to a recent Tech.co survey, the vast majority of business leaders think their employees should be checking in with their employer, manager, or supervisor before they use AI tools in the workplace. However, 12.3% of respondents said they expect their employees to use AI tools, and they don’t need permission to do so.
2. Training one AI large language emits as much carbon as five cars will during their lifetimes (MIT)
Unfortunately, all the computing power needed to train an AI model creates quite a lot of carbon. Some estimates show that ChatGPT – one of the world’s largest language models – produces the equivalent of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by 1,369 gasoline-powered cars over a year.
Source: MIT Technology Review.
3. 76% of consumers are concerned about misinformation generated by AI-powered technology (Forbes Advisor)
Misinformation spread across the internet via social media platforms quickly enough without the help of powerful AI tools like ChatGPT. Worryingly, the same survey found that only 54% of respondents thought they could distinguish between human and machine-generated content.
4. 56% of employees “don’t know or are unsure if their organizations have ethical standards” guiding its use (Deloitte)
This is a worrying AI statistic. Unchecked usage of AI tools can cause reputational damage for companies, especially if they’re used to assist with work that’s being created for customers, clients, or public consumption. Companies that aren’t communicating internal standards for governing employees’ usage of such tools open themselves up to a wide range of risks.
5. 68% of technology innovators, policy leaders, and decision-makers believe that “ethical principles focused primarily on the public good will not be employed in most AI systems by 2030” (Pew Research)
If you thought the previous stat was pretty bleak, another recent AI ethics survey found that experts are not optimistic at all about the chances of AI systems being focused on creating a positive impact in society. What else these systems might be based on – good or bad – is not specified.
The Future of AI in Business
AI is going to be at the heart of many business’s operations going forward. The vast majority are already using it, while many others are getting to grips with exactly how it can help them through testing and experimentation.
With business leaders apparently already keen to explore artificial intelligence as an alternative to employing new members of staff, it’s really anyone’s guess as to how the business landscape will actually change. However, businesses should be careful when incorporating generative AI tools like ChatGPT into their existing infrastructure without proper guidelines for its usage.
A lack of guidelines can lead to confusion, wasted time, and even reputational damage if content created by an AI tool is released to the public without being properly checked. While AI tools and machines present a myriad of exciting opportunities for businesses, time must be taken to fully understand the range and limitations of their capabilities.
