McKinsey says enterprise AI is finally 'on the road to ROI'
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McKinsey says enterprise AI is finally starting to pay off. But most firms still can’t point to real earnings from it, even as they spend more.
Based on reporting by The Register — read the original for the full story.
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McKinsey thinks enterprise AI has finally moved from hype to the early stages of payback. Its new State of AI in 2026 report says the engine is running, but the road to actual returns is still pretty empty for most companies.
The consulting firm surveyed 1,719 professionals and business leaders around the world and across industries. The headline is sobering: 37 percent said AI has had at least some effect on EBIT, which is roughly unchanged from last year. McKinsey’s stricter “high performer” group is tiny. Just 6 percent of respondents said AI accounts for at least 5 percent of their organization’s EBIT and described its impact as significant.
And yet the spending keeps going up. McKinsey says more organizations expect AI to reshape their business over the next three years, and they plan to invest more as well. The company also found rising use of agentic AI, especially at bigger firms. Among respondents at companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, 40 percent said they are scaling AI agents, up from 27 percent last year.
Coding agents are changing buying decisions too. Nearly a third of respondents said their organizations chose not to buy one or more software products or features because they built the functionality in-house with agentic coding tools. But there’s a catch: 20 percent said AI-related operating costs have constrained how much they can use the technology.
For all that, the gains still look mostly personal rather than corporate. Eighty percent of respondents who use AI in their jobs said it improved their own productivity. Meanwhile, 39 percent now expect their employer to cut jobs because of AI in the coming year, up from 32 percent in 2025. McKinsey’s own previous survey suggests those expectations may be overcooked; workforce reductions in 2025 came in well below what people had predicted the year before.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
The enterprise AI story is starting to look less like a revolution and more like a very expensive productivity perk. Companies love telling themselves the bill will look better later, which is exactly how vendors keep the meter running. If the best proof is happier workers and vague future savings, that’s not ROI — that’s a receipt with mood lighting.
Read more about this at: The Register