Throughout most of the 20th century, artificial intelligence
(AI) was the stuff of science fiction. However, through the huge
leaps in computational power since the late 1990s, AI has jumped
from the pages of science fiction to reality.
AI is now a real growth area in the emerging technologies field
whose newfound viability is creating new investment opportunities
across many industries. In this article we outline a few key
questions to consider when looking at an investment in a target
company that uses AI to provide products or services.
A 2018 report by McKinsey found the economic impact of AI will
most likely follow an s-curve pattern: slow at the beginning, given
the investment required to adopt such technology, followed by rapid
growth driven by competition and improvements in complementary
capabilities.1 AI is being aggressively adopted by
forward-looking businesses, particularly in the banking, retail and
automotive sectors.2 This rapid adoption is no
