Engineers are exploring the opportunity for AI in product development with what can be characterised as cautious optimism, as many are still assessing in which areas of their work AI will have the greatest impact, according to the latest insights from Avnet’s fourth survey.
As engineers begin to feel more optimistic overall – 75% report that they think market conditions for their design products are getting better, and half (49%) anticipate that economic and market conditions in the next year will make their product design and development work easier – Avnet’s latest survey turned to a key technology that may be impacting the year to come: AI. Avnet found four in 10 (42%) of engineers have incorporated AI into their product design process and are currently shipping those products, and went on to examine how else engineers are responding to the technology as they navigate this new frontier.
One question the engineers were asked was where emerging AI technology was thought to have the biggest impact among 14 areas, from AI-driven simulation and testing to hardware design tools and software code generation. Respondents were unable to identify a single leading area of opportunity.
Commenting on these findings, Alex Iuorio, Senior Vice President, Global Supplier Development, Avnet, said: “It is nearly impossible to outline one specific opportunity for a technology having as much potential impact as Artificial Intelligence. In our latest survey, engineers told us that they see AI impacting everything from their efficiency to hardware design tools to code generation, and even how they collaborate. It’s not that AI will not impact any one area most but rather the opposite: AI can, and will, have significant impact in all these areas.”
Looking more specifically at product development, almost all of engineers (96%) engineers agree that AI will be somewhat-to-extremely likely to impact key product development functions, including: increasing automation of design tasks, enabling more personalised and customised designs, improving predictive capabilities for market needs, and reducing the overall time for product development cycles.
The survey also found the top challenges engineers expect when considering integrating AI into their products include security and privacy concerns (37%) and data quality issues (31%). For about a quarter, integration with existing tools (25%) and high costs (24%) also are top of mind.
“Any new frontier is going to come with new challenges,” added Iuorio. “We’re seeing engineers raise concerns about AI in product development which aligns with concerns we are seeing about AI more broadly. At Avnet, we know how to navigate new challenges; we have over a century of experience in doing so. We can bring together expertise from suppliers and innovative ideas from customers to capitalise on the expansive opportunities that await.”
Finally, engineers expect certain skills will help them capitalise on the immediate opportunity. The top skills engineers feel are most necessary to use AI effectively in product design include: data analysis and interpretation (16%), AI model optimisation (16%), and problem solving and critical thinking (16%).
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