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The infrastructure boom and the returns achieved by individual businesses are two different questions. But together they reveal an important divide: investment in AI is accelerating at an economy-wide level, while many businesses are still struggling to show what their own spending has produced.
McKinsey's 2026 global AI survey found that only 37% of respondents said AI had contributed positively to their organisation's operating profit. And while AI use is becoming more widespread, fewer than half — 44% — said they were scaling it across the organisation.
Organisations reporting the strongest results are more likely to redesign workflows around AI, use it across more parts of the business and apply stronger operational discipline — not simply test tools in isolation.
Source: McKinsey →
Confidence is nevertheless rising faster than proven financial returns. BCG's 2026 survey of almost 2,400 executives, including 640 CEOs across 16 markets, found that four in five CEOs were more optimistic about AI's expected return than they had been a year earlier. AI investment was projected to reach approximately 1.7% of organisational revenue in 2026, up from 0.8% in 2025.
BCG classified 70% of CEOs as “Pragmatists”: leaders investing actively in AI and their people, but generally moving with the market rather than ahead of it. Only 15% were classified as “Trailblazers” — CEOs whose organisations are applying AI more systematically and already reporting gains in productivity, speed and decision quality.
The shift isn't that AI cannot pay off. It's that spending, confidence and proof are moving at different speeds — and right now, spending is moving fastest.
Source: BCG →
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