• Digitally transforming enterprises (63%) is the leading factor driving greater public cloud engagement or adoption today.
• 66% of IT professionals say security is their most significant concern in adopting an enterprise cloud computing strategy.
• 50% of IT professionals believe artificial intelligence and machine learning are playing a role in cloud computing adoption today, growing to 67% by 2020.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning will be the leading catalyst driving greater cloud computing adoption by 2020.

These insights and findings are from 

• Machine learning engineers, data scientists, and big data engineers rank among the top emerging jobs on LinkedIn.
• Data scientist roles have grown over 650% since 2012, but currently, 35,000 people in the US have data science skills, while hundreds of companies are hiring for those roles.
• There are currently 1,829 open machine learning engineering positions on LinkedIn.
• Job growth in the next decade is expected to outstrip growth during the previous decade, creating 11.5m jobs by 2026, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

These and many other...

• Big data adoption reached 53% in 2017 for all companies interviewed, up from 17% in 2015, with telecom and financial services leading early adopters.
• Reporting, dashboards, advanced visualization end-user “self-service” and data warehousing are the top five technologies and initiatives strategic to business intelligence.
• Data warehouse optimization remains the top use case for big data, followed by customer/social analysis and predictive maintenance.
• Among big data distributions, Cloudera is the most popular, followed by Hortonworks, MAP/R, and Amazon...

• 62% of all employees working for Software 500 companies would recommend their company to a friend, up from 61% in 2015.
• 76% of all employees working for Software 500 companies approve of their CEO today, up from 73% in 2015.
• Aconex Limited, The Trade Desk Inc. (NASDAQ: TTD), HubSpot (NYSE: HUBS), Talentica Software, Wix.com Ltd( (NASDAQ: 

• Worldwide public cloud services market revenue is projected to grow 18.5% in 2017 reaching $260.2B, up from $219.6B in 2016.
• 2016 worldwide SaaS revenue exceeded Gartner’s previous forecast by $48.2B.
• SaaS revenue is expected to grow 21% in 2017 reaching $58.6B by the end of this year.
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is projected to grow 36.6% in 2017 alone, reaching $34.7B this year making this area the fastest growing of all cloud services today.

Gartner’s latest worldwide public cloud...

• In 2020, AI will become a positive net job motivator, creating 2.3m jobs while eliminating only 1.8m jobs.
• By 2020, IoT technology will be in 95% of electronics for new product designs.
• By 2021, 40% of IT staff will be versatilists, holding multiple roles, most of which will be business, rather than technology-related.

These and many other insights were presented earlier this month at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2017 being held in Orlando, Florida. Gartner’s...

• Manufacturing-based IoT connections grew 84% between 2016 and 2017, followed by energy & utilities (41%).
• 73% of executives are either researching or currently launching IoT projects.
• The IoT platform market is expected to grow 35% per year to $1.16B by 2020.
• B2B uses can generate nearly 70% of the potential value enabled by IoT.

These and many other fascinating findings are from Verizon’s State of the Market: Internet of Things 2017,...

• 84% of respondents say AI will enable them to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage.
• 83% believe AI is a strategic priority for their businesses today.
• 75% state that AI will allow them to move into new businesses and ventures.

These and many other fascinating insights are from the Boston Consulting Group and MIT Sloan Management Review study published this week, Reshaping Business With Artificial Intelligence. An online 

• Gartner added eight new technologies to the Hype Cycle this year including 5G, artificial general intelligence, deep learning, edge computing, serverless PaaS.
• Virtual personal assistants, personal analytics, data broker PaaS (dbrPaaS) are no longer included in the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies.

The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017 provides insights gained from evaluations of more than 2,000 technologies the research and advisory firms tracks. From this large base of technologies, the technologies that show the most...

Editor's note: Read more around artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning at AI News.

• Tech giants including Baidu and Google spent between $20B to $30B on AI in 2016, with 90% of this spent on R&D and deployment, and 10% on AI acquisitions.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) investment has turned into a race for patents and intellectual property (IP) among the world’s leading tech companies.
• U.S.-based companies absorbed 66% of all AI investments in 2016. China...

• According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, M2M connections will represent 46% of connected devices by 2020.
• 95% of execs surveyed plan to launch an IoT business within three years.

These and many other insights are from the recently published Cisco Internet of Things (IoT) study, The Journey to IoT Value: Challenges, Breakthroughs, and Best Practices published on 

• Cloud ERP is the fastest growing sector of the global ERP market with services-based businesses driving the majority of new revenue growth.
• Legacy Services ERP providers excel at meeting professional & consulting services information needs yet often lack the flexibility and speed to support entirely new services business models.
• Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) is quickly emerging as a must-have feature in Services-based Cloud ERP suites.

From globally-based telecommunications providers to small & medium businesses (SMBs) launching new...

• By 2035 AI technologies have the potential to increase productivity 40% or more.
• AI will increase economic growth an average of 1.7% across 16 industries by 2035.
• Information and communication, manufacturing and financial services will be the top three industries that gain economic growth in 2035 from AI’s benefits.
• AI will have the most positive effect on education, accommodation and food services, and construction industry profitability in 2035.

Accenture Research and 

• 81% of IT leaders are currently investing in or planning to invest in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• Cowen predicts AI will drive user productivity to materially higher levels, with Microsoft at the forefront.
• Digital Marketing/Marketing Automation, Salesforce Automation (CRM) and Data Analytics are the top three areas ripe for AI/ML adoption.
• According to angel.co, there are 2,200+ Artificial Intelligence startups, and well over 50% have emerged in just the last two years.
• Cowen sees Salesforce ($CRM), Adobe ($ADBE)...

• Public cloud spending is predicted to grow quickly, attaining 16% year-over-year growth in 2017.
• Cowen’s AWS segment model is predicting Revenue and EBITDA to grow 25% and 26.8% annually from 2017 to 2022.
• Microsoft Azure is viewed as the platform that customers would most likely purchase or renew going forward (28% of total vs. AWS at 22%, GCP at 15%, and IBM at 10%).

These and many other fascinating insights are from Cowen’s study published this...

• Cloud computing is projected to increase from $67B in 2015 to $162B in 2020 attaining a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19%.
• Gartner predicts the worldwide public cloud services market will grow 18% in 2017 to $246.8B, up from $209.2B in 2016.
• 74% of Tech Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) say cloud computing will have the most measurable impact on their business in 2017.

Cloud platforms are enabling new, complex business models and orchestrating more globally-based integration networks in 2017 than many analyst and advisory firms predicted. Combined with...

Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) continues to be one of the hottest enterprise apps today, fuelled by the relentless need all companies have to increase sales while delivering customised orders profitably and accurately. Here are a few of the many results CPQ strategies are delivering today:

• Companies relying on CPQ are growing profit margins at a 57% greater rate year-over-year compared to non-adopters.
• 89% improvement in turning...

CEOs’ decisions today to pursue digital-first strategies for greater revenue growth are defining their company’s competitive strengths in the future. CIOs and their teams are being challenged to drive a larger percentage of revenue growth in 2017 than ever before by providing IT-based insights daily.

• Enabling faster revenue growth, improving products and replacing obsolete technologies are the top three CEO priorities have for CIOs in 2017.
• 42% of CIOs say “digital first” is their company’s go-forward strategy for IT investments in 2017...

• Security-related certifications pay on average over $17,000 per year more than the median IT certification salary.
• Citrix certifications have annual salaries that range from $99,411 to $105,086 with a median salary of $102,365.
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate is paying a median salary of $125,091.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certifications are the most pervasive, with 730,000 active PMPs in 210 countries and territories worldwide.

These and many other insights about the highest-paying certifications this year are from Global Knowledge’s...

• 50% of organisations are planning to use machine learning to better understand customers in 2017.
• 48% are planning to use machine learning to gain greater competitive advantage.
• Top future applications of machine learning include automated agents/bots (42%), predictive planning (41%), sales & marketing targeting (37%), and smart assistants (37%).

These and many other insights are from a recent survey completed by MIT Technology Review Custom and Google...