Two-thirds of workers in the UAE believe that artificial intelligence and data science will impact their role in the next five years, according to a YouGov study commissioned by Dataiku.
Meanwhile, 65 per cent expect AI and data science to impact their company and 67 percent expect AI and data science to have an impact on their industry in the next five years.
The UAE is a regional leader in leveraging data, data science and AI for decision making and business growth, the report found.
“While data scientists (and other data teams) are undoubtedly a critical piece of organisational data and AI transformation, we know — and have observed throughout 2021 — that they are not enough to make the difference exclusively by themselves. Business Leaders see clear value creation with AI and want multiple people across the organisation to contribute to use cases that add value at every step of this journey,” said Sid Bhatia, Regional Vice President & General Manager for Middle East & Turkey, Dataiku.
YouGov’s report reveals that some 71 per cent of UAE respondents have been using more data over the past five years, a figure that is again significantly higher than the EMEA average of just over half (55 per cent). Some 71 per cent of UAE respondents believe they will use even more data in the next five years compared to an EMEA average of 52 per cent.
“We’ve observed an influx of roles that are now involved in AI projects — project management and leads, risk managers, subject matter experts, annotators, hardcore data science internal think tanks who do most things in code, and more,” Bhatia added.
There is a gap in perception between managers and non-managers in the UAE when it comes to data utility and the role of AI. While 71 per cent of UAE managers say their use of data in daily work has increased over past five years and 73 per cent believe their use of data will increase over next five years, only 44 per cent of non-managers say they have used more data over the past five years and a mere third expect to use more over the next five years. Sixty-seven per cent of those in management positions believe AI and data science will impact their roles but less than half (44 per cent) of non-managers believe the same.
