Generative AI (GenAI) has caused a momentous shift in the enterprise AI platform market in early 2023. During the spring of 2023, all major cloud-based enterprise AI platform providers scrambled to launch their large language models and services and offer tools to support the deployment of GenAI on their platforms.
Almost overnight, AI platform providers pivoted their priorities from offering tools that facilitate data management, query data across repositories, streamline collaboration and version control and assist with model management and monitoring to supplying tools that help customers incorporate generative AI into their applications, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Rena Bhattacharyya, Chief Analyst and Practice Lead, Enterprise Technology & Services at GlobalData, said enterprises should plan for future use of GenAI while selecting an AI platform provider. Since it is still early, buyers should consider an AI platform’s capacity to incorporate large language models and customise foundational models from multiple vendors.
“It is yet to be seen whether some models will perform better for certain workloads than others,” said Bhattacharyya.
GlobalData’s latest report, Cloud-based Enterprise AI Platforms, Competitive Landscape Assessment, pointed out that building, training, tuning, and managing an AI model was a complex undertaking and enterprises interested in expanding their use of AI can select from many potential partners. However, though several competitors provide AI platforms, capabilities vary greatly, and differentiation often comes from the complementary services that a vendor provides.
Bhattacharyya continued that each organisation will have unique requirements for deploying and scaling AI projects. Platform buying criteria include the availability of APIs, machine learning platform tools, generative AI capabilities, horizontal and industry-specific solutions, explainable and responsible AI considerations, and professional services for complex implementations.
The report finds that IBM is a leader in the AI platform market, followed closely by Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Salesforce is a niche player, offering numerous operationalised solutions to help enterprises glean actionable insights from data to improve the customer experience and sales process.
Bhattacharyya said that Microsoft differentiated itself as a thought leader among the hyper-scale cloud providers by being the first to market with access to GenAI. However, IBM stands out as a leader in cloud-based enterprise AI platforms, offering a full suite of model development and management tools, access to internally developed and third-party large language models, industry-specific solutions, and robust professional services to help customers identify and implement use cases.
As a result, Salesforce has been fast to market with CRM solutions that leverage generative AI and has had to educate the enterprise community on best practices for Responsible AI.
