Only 6% of organisations are getting real financial returns from AI
Phil Thomas ·
Only 6% of organisations are getting real financial returns from AI. A year on, that number hasn’t budged.
That’s from McKinsey’s latest State of AI survey of 1,719 leaders. Usage has exploded and budgets keep rising, but the share of “high performers” (firms attributing 5%+ of profit to AI) is flat.
So what are the 6% doing differently?
They’re not buying more AI. Nearly three-quarters of them redesigned their workflows around it. Among everyone else it’s about a quarter.
It’s the same story as Deloitte’s 37% figure: most firms are bolting AI onto how they already work and wondering where the returns are.
For a smaller firm, the answer isn’t a big transformation programme. It’s picking two or three processes where AI can genuinely change the work, and doing those properly.
That’s exactly what the AI Opportunity Review is for. One free hour, three specific opportunities.
