The artificial intelligence market in Italy

Until a few years ago, talking about Artificial Intelligence in Italy made many people turn up their noses, but in the last period it has represented one of the sectors in Italy for which there has been exceptional growth. AI, therefore, has become increasingly important for companies that choose it as a technology to start projects of a certain type, but also for the world of work and recruitment. Let’s see how through an overview of the Italian market in recent years.

The growth of artificial intelligence in Italy

As noted by the Observatory of the Polytechnic, more and more companies and consumers are approaching AI, although it still remains a technology that is not so widespread or even explored.
This is confirmed by the numbers: according to the research of the Politecnico, in fact, in Italy the AI market has seen a + 27% in 2021, reaching 380 million euros. These numbers are certainly important, but they are even more so if we consider that the value has doubled in 2 years and that 76% of the value is commissioned by Italian companies and the remaining 24% as exports of projects.

Of course, this is not a choice of all companies in Italy: among large companies, 60% started at least one AI project, while for small companies it is barely 6%.

But beyond activating AI projects or not, what do companies think about it? 80% of those surveyed like it, although concerns remain about privacy, labor and ethics. There remains a 20% who are not entirely convinced, but let’s say the trend is taking on rather rosy colors.

How much is the artificial intelligence market worth in Italy?

Beyond the economic value of investments, which projects are we talking about when we talk about Artificial Intelligence in Italy? Basically, 35%, according to the data of the Politecnico, concerns projects of algorithms born to analyze and extract the necessary information from data, the so-called Intelligent Data Processing. An area that also marks one of the greatest growth: +32% compared to 2020 and that also has a lot to do with recruitment.

Then there are the solutions of the so-called Natural Language Processing, i.e. the interpretation of natural language, in which, for example, intelligent conversational systems such as Alexa and Siri fall, to name a few. NLP – this is the acronym – occupies 17.5% of the market while the development of algorithms to suggest content to customers in line with their individual preferences concerns 16%. This, defined Recommendation System, is also growing.

Next up are chatbots and virtual assistants, which account for 10.5% of the projects, and Computer Vision initiatives which, as can be guessed, analyze the content of images. A small part of AI projects concerns then the Intelligent Robotic Process Automation: that is the automation and governance of projects thanks to Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence in the world of work

If AI is knowing different uses in healthcare, security, e-commerce and much more, in the world of work it can surely give a big boost in the recruitment sector but not only.

The last 2 years with the strong growth of digitization, which has allowed many companies to move forward, it has shown on the one hand the fact that yes, it is possible to include some tools in the company, on the other hand that there is also a significant skills gap.  

That’s why AI could become more and more strategic to match supply and demand and avoid what marks the Italian job market, namely the mismatch between the positions offered and the preparation of people.

Artificial Intelligence can help cross-reference data more easily and plan investments on an ad hoc basis.

This is as true in the private sector as it could be in the public sector and could lead to a great deal of mobility that takes into account different factors.

Not to mention the automation of some repetitive processes that mark different industries and that with some Artificial Intelligence projects could be lightened. Such as contract management, supplier management and much more.

Artificial Intelligence can then lead to a Data Driven approach and guide the decision-making processes of companies as well as use smart technologies that can respond quickly to new research.

And above all, Artificial Intelligence can considerably help Human Resources and the recruitment and selection process.

Development opportunities for the HR sector

In the HR world, AI development opportunities certainly concern recruiting and talent attraction.

In fact, using technologies in this sense can help to accelerate the activities of search and selection, to make the search for candidates more effective by matching their skills with what is required by the company, to manage the application time in a more sustainable way and transferring a large amount of data.  

A software like Inda allows acceleration the extraction of information, automates the compilation of application forms and archive data allowing the recruiter to better manage the selection process. And this, as a cascade, also affects the candidates, who have a better candidate experience and tend to leave the process less during the application phase.

Artificial Intelligence in recruiting also makes use of semantic research, a mode that is anything but negligible when there are many applications and having to find the right person in a short time is the recurring imperative.

What do semantic algorithms do? Basically, they identify in the CVs the keywords that have been inserted by the recruiter in the ad, as well as those words that are not exactly the same but have a similar meaning.

And this is important because sometimes candidates think that the automated process disadvantages those who haven’t used the right terms in their CV. But just as when we search on Google, the engine understands what our search intent is, the same way semantic analysis behaves by understanding the real characteristics of the candidate.

AI in recruiting then helps the recruiter himself to be as objective as possible to overcome cognitive biases related to his personal experience, biases he has embedded and so on. And this is thanks to making the CV anonymous without much effort.

Therefore, it is an invaluable support not only from the perspective of time reduction, but of people enhancement. Which, in the long run, also translates into business improvement.