Only 22% of organisations are successfully scaling AI

New research by Gartner finds that only 22% of organisations have successfully scaled artificial intelligence (AI) across multiple business units or adopted an AI-first approach, despite accelerating corporate investment.

A survey of 1,303 respondents from enterprises with annual revenues of at least $50 million revealed that 85% of functional leaders plan to increase AI spending in 2026, after dedicating 12% of functional budgets in 2025. However, roughly 11% remain completely unaware of their 2025 expenditure. Productivity is the primary objective, targeted by 75% of leaders and accounting for 30% of functional spend.

The study highlighted that high performers who systematically measure ROI saw positive returns across 81% of initiatives. A disconnect persists between popular use cases and financial outcomes. More frequently pursued tools such as cybersecurity threat detection and service desk automation (both 54%) were outpaced in positive returns by less common applications, including IT asset and cost optimisation (40%) and synthetic data generation (28%). Gartner advises organisations to select use cases that closely align with their unique business needs.

Meanwhile, a separate Gartner study identifies that only 27% of customers would use chatbots again after a negative experience.

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