Business executives remain committed to investing in innovation to thwart emergent risks, even if financial forecasters continue to signal near-term economic downturns across the globe, according to research from FIS.
The study covered more than 2,000 senior executives globally to discover their strategies for managing risks, and how innovation and new technologies can give them a competitive edge.
Results show that two in every five (40%) respondents across diverse sectors, including financial services, fintech, insurance, retail, energy and utilities, and healthcare, are leveraging Generative AI.
This number is set to soar to 89% within the next three years, as businesses prepare to tap on its transformative potential.
Early adopters are leading the charge, perceiving more opportunities than risks in AI and Generative AI.
Strategic investments are on the horizon, with around two-thirds of existing adopters planning to escalate their spending on new technologies.
Regarding technology investments, several key trends have emerged across various sectors. Notably, customer experience technology has taken the lead as the largest growth area for spending, closely followed by investments in AI and generative AI.
Technology is not only perceived as a risk mitigation tool but also as a means to enhance competitiveness, mirroring the role of innovation.
Findings also show that 47% of businesses experiencing financial risk say they are adopting new technology.
Also, 98% of the firms believe innovation plays a role in mitigating macro risks.
Further, 48% of financial institutions believe innovation has a very significant role in mitigating risks.
In addition, 54% of the firms will build or adopt technology and systems innovations to mitigate risk in the next 12 months – making this the most common innovation choice across all respondents.
More than half (53%) of firms admit that there is limited budget or financial resources for investing in innovation.
The Fintech and Technology sectors are more likely to see AI as more of an opportunity than a risk (61% and 59%, respectively), while the insurance sector is more positive than most about generative AI (58%).
