Only 13 percent of companies see big returns from their AI spending

Only 13 percent of companies report major or transformative returns from their AI spending. That comes from a Gartner survey of 2,002 chief information officers (CIOs, the executives who run company technology) and other tech leaders. It was presented at the Gartner IT Symposium in Orlando.

The money problem

Companies are asking AI to save money, but many expect the opposite. 58 percent of CIOs are tasked with cutting costs through AI. Yet 51 percent expect AI to raise the total operating costs of their tech setup. Also, 44 percent of CEOs struggle to show stakeholders financial returns from AI.

Gartner analyst Alicia Mullery describes a gap between the "innovation race" that vendors are running and the "outcomes race" that companies need to win.

What the winners do

Companies that succeed decide early which AI projects are worth pursuing and which to shut down, even ones already in use. They also plan ahead for how AI agents, software that can take on tasks, will change job roles.

Not everyone is impatient. Bloomberg CEO Vlad Kliatchko says it is too early to measure AI's economic payoff. His company is investing because it believes this is the right moment. Overall, 75 percent of CEOs still plan to raise technology spending.

The material does not say how Gartner defined returns beyond those labels, or which industries did best.