Analyst(s): Ron Westfall
Publication Date: February 5, 2025
Understanding the selection criteria for AI practices and solutions is crucial in today’s swiftly evolving AI ecosystem landscape. As organizations increasingly embrace AI, they face challenges in navigating the vast array of available solutions and aligning them with their unique business requirements. Defining clear selection criteria helps organizations cut through the hype and choose AI solutions that can align with their specific needs and goals. This alignment is critical for maximizing the value of AI investments and driving innovation, as well as avoiding investment errors that can undermine a company’s financial performance and competitiveness.
Key Points:
- Expertise and experience with AI ranked as the most important criteria when selecting an AI vendor. In contrast, respondents listed “Implementation speed and timeline” as the area where vendors fail most often.
- Top decision makers, such as CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs, are taking the lead role in the selection of AI solutions, indicating AI adoption is a top strategic priority.
- Understanding the top-ranking purchase criteria for AI practices and solutions is crucial for businesses looking to optimize their AI investments and stay competitive in the rapidly evolving tech landscape and AI ecosystem.
Overview:
The Futurum Group’s latest insights report, The Top Selection & Purchasing Criteria Driving AI Decision-Making, spotlights on how making the right choice of AI practices and solutions is paramount for today’s organizations. Developing and understanding the selection criteria helps identify potential risks associated with the implementation of AI, such as legal compliance issues, avoiding ill-informed investment decisions, and raising overall competitiveness. By better understanding the top selection criteria, organizations can proactively address concerns and ensure responsible AI adoption. This includes better knowing who is decision-making in the selection of AI practices and solutions.
Futurum Intelligence data indicates CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs are playing a more direct role in the selection of AI solutions due to the transformative impact of AI on businesses and the need for strategic alignment. AI is now seen as a necessary tool for improving business performance and outcomes, requiring top-level decision-making to integrate it into overall business strategy.
According to Futurum Intelligence data, the purchase criteria that received top ranking for choosing AI practices and solutions consisted of internal efficiency, improved competitive position, company financials, demonstrated leadership, and economy. From our point of view, they were prioritized due to their significant impact on an organization’s overall performance and success.
Futurum Intelligence data shows a clear understanding of what decision makers value the most in choosing AI practices and solutions. This is a major impetus for why organizations need to establish their top selection criteria to ensure they pick the best AI practices and solutions that meet the unique business needs of their organization.
Figure 1. AI Practices Selection Criteria
The top five selection criteria for AI practices and solutions consist of expertise, privacy, price, support, and time to value due to their critical importance in starting and advancing AI implementation alongside addressing key business concerns.
For instance, to meet the challenges of selecting the best AI solutions, we see IBM Research and Red Hat developing the Large-Scale Alignment (LAB) method, which is an approach that can enable more efficient fine tuning of pretrained-based models to specific business needs.
These criteria are interconnected and collectively contribute to an organization’s ability to harness AI’s potential for sustainable growth and success in an increasingly competitive business landscape. By considering these criteria, decision-makers can make informed decisions about AI solutions that align with their needs, capabilities, and goals, ultimately leading to more successful AI implementations and better business outcomes.
Conclusion: Understanding the top-ranking purchase criteria for AI practices and solutions is crucial for businesses aiming to maximize their AI investments and stay competitive in the rapidly evolving competitive landscape and AI ecosystem. Awareness of the top criteria can prove vital because they reflect the strategic priorities that drive successful AI implementation.
By focusing on these areas, companies can ensure that their AI investments deliver tangible benefits, from improved operational efficiency to enhanced market competitiveness and financial performance. This knowledge helps decision-makers align their AI strategies with broader business objectives, ensuring that AI adoption contributes meaningfully to the company’s overall success and long-term viability across an increasingly AI-driven business landscape.
The full report is available via subscription to Futurum Intelligence—click here for inquiry and access.
See the complete press release on the IBM website.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
