IBM Thailand wants to bring Thai organisations to the next frontier of artificial intelligence (AI) by removing obstacles to adoption.
Anothai Wettayakorn, country general manager of IBM Thailand, estimates 5-6% of organisations in Thailand this year adopted generative AI (GenAI). IBM wants to help increase adoption to 15-20% next year in order to improve Thai competitiveness.
Around 10% of organisations globally have embraced AI, according to IBM.
This year there were a lot of pilot projects or proof of concept work in GenAI in Thailand, but not many were deployed on a large scale, said Mr Anothai.
There are several concerns over AI adoption in finance, the readiness of technology infrastructure, security, and AI skills and regulations, he said.
Around 75% of global organisations are piloting GenAI in five or more functions, according to the IBM Institute for Business Value.
IT research house Gartner reported nearly half of businesses have moved from AI exploration to the pilot stages, with 10% reaching real AI implementation or adoption, and 30% of GenAI projects to be abandoned by 2025 after proof of concept.
In IBM's 2024 AI Governance Report, almost half of the surveyed chief executives said they were concerned about accuracy and bias, an issue that could create as many problems as GenAI promises to solve.
Some 76% of Thai chief executives agreed that an organisation's success is directly tied to the quality of collaboration between finance and technology functions.
Around 55% of Thai executives in charge of technology say they are delaying at least one major tech investment, pending greater clarity for standards and regulations, noted the survey, while 45% of tech executives say their concerns about regulation and compliance as a barrier to GenAI adoption have increased in the last six months.
Mr Anothai said this year the banking, telecom and retail sectors were early adopters of AI, while next year the healthcare, manufacturing and education sectors are expected to take the plunge.
"Organisations should have AI strategies and pick high-impact use cases by accepting more risk, scaling out projects to stay competitive," he said.
An IBM study found the average AI return on investment was 13% in 2022, and GenAI early adopters led by successful pilots raised that return to 31% in 2023.
"No one is fully prepared to adopt AI and can't wait. However, AI will become a core technology soon," said Mr Anothai.
He said IBM will accelerate organisations' adoption of GenAI by promoting four critical factors.
The first is open-source AI models, which will help enterprises reduce vendor lock-in and encourage ongoing community-driven innovation, supporting trustworthy AI strategies for all, said Mr Anothai.
The second is a trusted data foundation, using an open foundation that integrates and manages data across hybrid cloud environments, enabling interoperability with existing technologies, reducing silos, and accelerating data-driven transformation.
The third factor is the scaling of GenAI with governance, as more businesses realise the need to adopt AI governance solutions and frameworks crucial for mitigating risk, reducing bias, and adhering to the evolving regulatory landscape, he said.
Finally, ecosystem integrations should be able to generate open-source model growth in 2025, said Mr Anothai.
IBM offers its open-source Granite 3.0 AI model that enables smaller, faster and cheaper solutions for deploying GenAI.
He said smaller language models that customers can customise and fit into their business will enable lower costs of investment than large language models, given the smaller mode uses fewer computing resources.
Statista projected the Thai GenAI market size reaching US$180 million this year.
The market is expected to post compound annual growth of 46.5% from 2024-2030, resulting in a market volume of $1.77 billion by 2030.
By 2030, Thailand's AI market size is estimated at 114 billion baht, according to Statista.
There will be 300 use cases of AI by 2030, with major contributions in manufacturing, insurance, automotive and healthcare, noted the data analysis firm.