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STAMFORD, Conn., September 21, 2020
Gartner Says Worldwide Robotic Process Automation Software Revenue to Reach Nearly $2 Billion in 2021
RPA Market Forecast to Grow at Double-Digit Rates Through 2024 Despite Economic Pressures from COVID-19
Global robotic process automation (RPA) software revenue is projected to reach $1.89 billion in 2021, an increase of 19.5% from 2020, according to the latest forecast from Gartner, Inc. Despite economic pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the RPA market is still expected to grow at double-digit rates through 2024.
“The key driver for RPA projects is their ability to improve process quality, speed and productivity, each of which is increasingly important as organizations try to meet the demands of cost reduction during COVID-19,” said Fabrizio Biscotti, research vice president at Gartner. “Enterprises can quickly make headway on their digital optimization initiatives by investing in RPA software, and the trend isn’t going away anytime soon.”
Worldwide RPA software revenue is expected to reach $1.58 billion in 2020, an increase of 11.9% from 2019 (see Table 1). Through 2020, average RPA prices are expected to decrease 10% to 15%, with annual 5% to 10% decreases expected in 2021 and 2022, creating strong downward pricing pressure.
Table 1. Worldwide RPA Software Revenue (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
| Revenue ($M) | 1,411.1 | 1,579.5 | 1,888.1 |
| Growth (%) | 62.93 | 11.94 | 19.53 |
Source: Gartner (September 2020)
COVID-19 Increased Enterprise Interest in RPA
The pandemic and ensuing recession increased interest in RPA for many enterprises. Gartner predicts that 90% of large organizations globally will have adopted RPA in some form by 2022 as they look to digitally empower critical business processes through resilience and scalability, while recalibrating human labor and manual effort.
“Gartner anticipates RPA demand to grow and service providers to more consistently push RPA solutions to their clients because of the impact of COVID-19,” said Cathy Tornbohm, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. “The decreased dependency on a human workforce for routine, digital processes will be more attractive to end users not only for cost reduction benefits, but also for insuring their business against future impacts like this pandemic.”
Organizations Are Expected to Grow their RPA Capacity
Through 2024, large organizations will triple the capacity of their existing RPA portfolios.The majority of “new” spend will come from large organizations that are purchasing new add-on capacity from their original vendor or partners within the ecosystem.
“As organizations grow, they will need to add licenses to run RPA software on additional servers and add additional cores to handle the load,” said Mr. Biscotti. “This trend is a natural reflection of the increasing demands being placed on an organization’s ‘everywhere’ infrastructure.”
Future RPA Clients Will Come from Non-IT Buyers
Adoption of RPA will increase as awareness of RPA grows among business users. In fact, by 2024, Gartner predicts nearly half of all new RPA clients will come from business buyers who are outside the IT organization.
“Leading RPA software vendors have successfully targeted chief financial officers (CFOs) and chief operating officers (COOs), instead of IT alone. They like the quick deployment of low-code/no-code automation. The challenge they have is integrating RPA successfully across heterogeneous, changing environments, which is where IT coordination can make the difference,” said Mr. Biscotti.
Gartner clients can read more in “Forecast Analysis: Robotic Process Automation, Worldwide.”
Additional analysis on CIO leadership and how to reimagine your approach to technology and business strategy will be presented during Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2020, the world’s most important conferences for CIOs and other IT executives. IT executives rely on these conferences to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to overcome business challenges and improve operational efficiency. Follow news and updates from the conferences on Twitter using#GartnerSYM.
About Gartner
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities today and build the successful organizations of tomorrow.
Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the issues that matter most. We are a trusted advisor and an objective resource for more than 14,000 enterprises in more than 100 countries — across all major functions, in every industry and enterprise size.
To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of business, visit gartner.com.
04 Aug 2020
IDC Forecasts Strong 12.3% Growth for AI Market in 2020 Amidst Challenging Circumstances
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., August 4, 2020 – Worldwide revenues for the artificial intelligence (AI) market, including software, hardware, and services, are expected to total $156.5 billion in 2020, an increase of 12.3% over 2019. While this year’s growth is somewhat slower than previous years due to the economic impact of COVID-19, International Data Corporation (IDC) believes investment in AI will recover quickly. A new forecast from the IDC Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker shows worldwide revenues surpassing $300 billion in 2024 with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.1%.
Software is the largest AI technology group delivering roughly 80% of all AI revenue. Most of the software revenue comes from AI Applications ($120.4 billion in 2020) with AI Software Platforms ($4.3 billion) delivering the remainder. CRM AI Applications and ERM AI Applications are the two largest segments with 20% and 17% share of the AI Applications market. Other key segments include AI for Content Workflow and Management Applications, Production Applications, and Collaborative Applications. While software will remain the largest category throughout the forecast, it will also see the slowest growth with a five-year CAGR of 16.7%.
“The role of AI Applications in enterprises is rapidly evolving. It is transforming how your customers buy, your suppliers deliver, and your competitors compete. AI applications continue to be at the forefront of digital transformation (DX) initiatives, driving both innovation and improvement to business operations,” said Ritu Jyoti, program vice president, Artificial Intelligence Research at IDC.
CRM AI Applications are expected to take center stage within the AI Applications market, both in terms of its sheer size and growth opportunities, in the coming years. “Customer Experience (CX) is the new brand. Leading CRM vendors are driving the intersection of CRM and CX, that help build strategies that improve both your customers’ and your employees’ experience with your business,” added Ritu.
In terms of vendor share, Adobe had the top spot for AI-centric CRM Applications while Microsoft was #1 in AI non-centric CRM Applications. Meanwhile, in ERM AI Applications, Ceridian and Intuit take the top spots in AI-centric and AI non-centric types, respectively. As for the rest of the AI Applications market, IBM is in first position under AI-centric type while Microsoft occupies the top spot under AI non-centric type.
The second largest AI category is services, which IDC forecasts will reach $18.4 billion in 2020, an increase of 13% year over year. Within the AI services market, AI IT Services accounts for nearly 80% of the category’s revenue with AI Business Services delivering the rest.
“The pandemic has interrupted the momentum of AI services market growth in nearly all regions,” said Jennifer Hamel, research manager, Analytics and Intelligent Automation Services. “However, enterprise demand for AI capabilities to support business resiliency and augment human productivity will sustain double-digit expansion in 2020 even as other discretionary projects experience delays.”
Rising demand for expertise in embedding AI-enabling technologies into business analytics and intelligent automation programs has led to a highly competitive and fragmented AI services vendor landscape. The Tracker currently publishes more than 150 companies under AI services. The top 5 companies in terms of market share – IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, Infosys, and Cognizant – captured roughly one third of the worldwide AI services market in 2019.
IDC expects AI hardware (server and storage combined) revenues to reach $13.4 billion in 2020, representing 10.3% year-over-year growth, which is a significant drop from the prior year when it grew 33.4%. Within the hardware market, AI Storage is forecast to grow 11.4% this year, slightly ahead of AI Server, which is expected to grow 10.1%. However, from a size perspective, AI Server is responsible for more than 80% of total AI hardware revenues. The overall hardware market is forecast to have a strong recovery with 35.5% year-on-year growth next year, led by AI Storage, which is expected to grow 43.1% year over year.
Amita Potnis, research director in IDC’s Enterprise Infrastructure Practice explains further, “While the overall market has seen a slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, investments for AI and analytics infrastructure will continue, and perhaps increase, in specific industries such as life sciences, healthcare and Media & Entertainment. Storage will see stronger growth than servers owing to new data generation along with existing datasets that will be curated to support AI models with increased adoption of high-performance parallel file systems and all-flash object stores.”
“The AI server market is expected to return to its previous growth trajectory in 2021, but with the US not having the pandemic under control, 2021 growth in the US will be lower than in China and Western Europe,” said Peter Rutten, research director in IDC’s Enterprise Infrastructure Practice.
In terms of vendor share, the top 3 companies in AI Server are Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Inspur. They are the only 3 competitors with double-digit market share in that market space. In the AI Storage market, Dell Technologies, NetApp, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise hold the top 3 positions.
The IDC Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker publishes AI vendor share and market forecast data on a semi-annual basis. It provides data and insights into all the key technology areas – server, storage, software, and services – built on IDC’s comprehensive methodology involving vendor product, market, and workload modeling. More than 400 vendor companies are currently published in the Tracker, ensuring that the competitive landscape is well represented. Through its broad and in-depth coverage, the Tracker can be relied on by users to assess which sectors within the AI market are expected to grow in demand during these unusually challenging times and optimize their business plans accordingly. In the next release scheduled for January 2021, IDC plans for the Tracker to expand with more details including country-level breakdown and introducing System Infrastructure Software and Application Development & Deployment in the primary markets.
About IDC Trackers
IDC Tracker products provide accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe. Using proprietary tools and research processes, IDC’s Trackers are updated on a semiannual, quarterly, and monthly basis. Tracker results are delivered to clients in user-friendly excel deliverables and on-line query tools.
For more information about IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker, please contact Kathy Nagamine at 650-350-6423 or knagamine@idc.com.
Click here to learn about IDC’s full suite of data products and how you can leverage them to grow your business.
About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC’s analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world’s leading tech media, data and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights: http://bit.ly/IDCBlog_Subscribe.