Forecasts have shown that the global AI market is set to see a five-fold increase in value, from $22.6 billion in 2020 to $126 billion by 2025, with one in five workers using the tech as part of their job.

The boost comes as the growing volume and complexity of business data forces many firms across a variety of industries to adopt AI to boost growth.

The Tradica Artificial Intelligence Market Forecast revealed that, in 2018, the value of global AI software industry hit $10.1 billion. Since then, the market value doubled to $22.6 billion.

AI is making big changes for industries across the world, helping to make improvements to efficiency, quality, and speed, automation, deep learning, and natural language processing. AI has helped business’ streamline operations, make better decisions and help predict trends.

Some of the largest companies in the tech industry have invested heavily in AI acquisitions and AI-related research and development. Companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Google and Samsung have each submitted thousands of AI patent applications, while AI-related startups are making billions of dollars in investment each year.

According to a KMPG 2019 global survey, nearly 75% of businesses questioned said that up to 50% of their current workforce would be significantly impacted by the adoption of intelligent automation technologies.

Although many people consider automation and AI as replacements for a common workforce, the coming years are expected to witness a growing integration between human and digital workers, creating a new hybrid workforce.

The Scottish Government is adopting its own AI strategy to benefit the Scottish economy, society and environment.

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The Government said: “To ensure that we maximise this potential, and signal our ambition to the world, the Scottish Government committed to developing an AI strategy for Scotland that is people-centred and aligned with the National Performance Framework.

“The strategy will be published in September 2020 and set out what Scotland needs to do to realise the potential of AI, and the ecosystem that will enable this. A scoping paper, titled ‘The AI of The Possible: Developing Scotland’s AI Strategy’, was recently published and is open for public consultation until the 27th of March, with additional engagement activities to take place across Scotland this spring.

“The Scottish Government already supports the development of data-driven innovation including AI in Scotland through a wide number of programmes.

“At the end of 2019, we launched a £170,000 pilot “AI for good” challenge to tackle the Climate Emergency. Six projects have been shortlisted for funding over an initial 10-week proof of concept phase. They are led by small businesses and start-ups and cover a wide range of sectors including land use, waste management, renewable energy storage, the thermal efficiency of buildings and food security.

“It is anticipated that up three of these projects will be supported for an additional up to one-year scale-up phase.”