McKinsey found 89% of companies use AI. Only 37% say it lifted operating profit.
"We find that only 37% of companies attribute any positive EBIT impact from their AI programs, let alone from newer agentic deployments," McKinsey & Company writes in its Technology Trends Outlook 2026, CIO reported on 2 October.
EBIT is operating profit; agentic deployments are AI agents that carry out tasks.
McKinsey also reports higher costs. McKinsey calculates that an AI agent workflow needs five to 30 times the computing power of a typical chatbot question. In a survey the report cites, 93% of participants said this pushed them over their AI budgets. CIO's account does not give the size of the overruns.
About 80% of developers using AI tools gained roughly 3% in productivity; the top 20% gained 55%. In 30% of companies, productivity fell after teams started using AI tools that write code.
McKinsey says the poor record does not have to be permanent. The 37% counts companies, not money. As CIO reports it, the figure does not show how much operating profit the AI added, or what it cost to get there.
Has your AI programme shown up in operating profit yet?
Image: AI-generated.
Sources
Our file on McKinsey & Company
All 2 McKinsey & Company storiesEvery story here is open to read. The ERP LEADERS brief goes one step further.
The week in enterprise software, in one email: the stories that mattered, the failures with their figures, one case taken apart. Read a sample or sign up for the brief.
Welcome back. · Issue 01
