Strongest demand for AI talent comes from non-IT departments:

For the past four years, the strongest demand for talent with artificial intelligence (AI) skills has not come from the IT department, but rather, from other business units in the organisation, according to Gartner, Inc.

Gartner "Talent Neuron" data shows that although the IT departments need for AI talent has tripled between 2015 and 2019, the number of AI jobs posted by IT is still less than half of that stemming from other business units.

Departments recruiting AI talent in high volumes include marketing, sales, customer service, finance, and research and development, the research firm said in a statement.

These business units are using AI talent for customer churn modeling, customer profitability analysis, customer segmentation, cross-sell and upsell recommendations, demand planning, and risk management, it was stated.

A significant portion of AI use cases are reported from asset-centric industries supporting projects such as predictive maintenance, workflow and production optimisation, quality control and supply chain optimisation, Gartner said.