AI yet to deliver promised profits for most firms, Deloitte finds

Most benefits to date are operational rather than financial

AI is not yet living up to its financial hype for most companies, according to new research from Deloitte, but is improving productivity and efficiency.

Deloitte's latest "State of AI in the Enterprise" report [pdf] suggests that while businesses are pressing ahead with AI investment, the technology has so far had limited impact on revenues.

Nearly three-quarters of organisations surveyed said they wanted AI initiatives to drive revenue growth, but only one in five reported that this had happened.

Deloitte said the disconnect highlights a misunderstanding about what success with AI looks like.

"Success with AI isn't just about boosting efficiency or even growing revenue," the report said. "It's about achieving strategic differentiation and a lasting competitive edge."

The study, based on responses from more than 3,200 business and IT leaders worldwide, found that although a quarter now say AI is having a "transformative" effect on their organisation, however, most benefits to date are operational rather than financial.

About two-thirds of respondents said AI was improving productivity and efficiency.

The report also found that access to AI tools in the workplace is expanding. Almost 60% of employees now have access to IT-approved AI systems, up from 40% last year.

But fewer than 60% of those workers use the tools as part of their daily workflow, suggesting that much of AI's potential remains untapped.

At the same time, companies appear to be moving beyond experimentation. A quarter said they had already shifted at least 40% of AI pilot projects into live production, a figure Deloitte expects to reach 54% of organisations within the next six months.

The report also points to significant implications for jobs. More than a third of companies expect at least 10% of roles to be fully automated within a year, while 82% of the surveyed companies expect at least 10% of their jobs to be fully automated in next three years.

Yet most firms have not redesigned roles to reflect those changes. Enthusiasm among non-technical staff remains muted. Only 13% said they were highly enthusiastic about using AI, while a quarter were sceptical or openly distrustful.

Concerns about control and regulation are also shaping AI strategies.

More than four in five firms said "sovereign AI" – systems and data governed locally rather than reliant on foreign providers – was at least moderately important to them.

Looking ahead, Deloitte expects a sharp rise in the use of AI agents, systems that can act autonomously using digital tools. However, only one in five organisations currently has mature governance in place for such technology.

Nitin Mittal, Deloitte Global AI leader, noted: "Across the enterprise, we're seeing massive ambition around AI, with organizations starting to pivot from experimentation to integrating AI into the core of the business with a focus on scale and impact."

"As organisations look to unlock AI's full value, leaders should enable enterprise value by consciously weaving AI into the fabric of their business workflows and through the better coupling of people and machine intelligence."

The findings echo similar conclusions elsewhere.

A recent survey by PwC found that only a small minority of chief executives had seen both higher revenues and lower costs from AI, while more than half reported no financial benefit at all.

Research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year also found that most corporate generative AI pilots failed to deliver meaningful returns.