As we enter the latter half of 2026, the AI conversation has shifted from implementation to ROI. Ninety percent of organizations now report getting some value from AI tools. Only 45% are getting a great deal of it. That gap, which is the distance between “something” and “substantial,” is where the entire AI economy is currently parked.
In Harvard Business Review earlier this year, my team and I published findings from a survey (link 1) of 1,006 C-level executives across 32 industries and 11 countries. Several factors separate the organizations getting real returns from those merely getting by. Most prominently, 55% of executives cite unready data as an inhibitor, and 47% cite the absence of a repeatable value framework.
