As AI adoption increases, companies are accelerating their investments in AI for competitive advantage and long-term value creation.
According to Multi-year AI benefits: Building tomorrow’s enterpriseAccording to a survey of 1,505 executives from large organizations around the world, 38% of organizations are already operationalizing generative AI use cases, and 6 in 10 organizations are currently considering agent AI applications.
Almost half of organizations in China are piloting or deploying agent AI, ahead of organizations in the US and Europe. Two-thirds of business leaders believe that if they cannot scale AI as quickly as their competitors, they risk missing out on strategic opportunities and losing their competitive edge.
Meanwhile, the way organizations measure AI success is evolving.
Operational efficiency and cost reduction are no longer the only benchmarks. New measures of ROI include revenue growth, risk management and compliance, knowledge management, and customer experience and personalization.
Business leaders around the world are more aware than ever of the need to maintain control of their critical assets. More than half of organizations are now prioritizing data sovereignty and ensuring sensitive and regulated data is under control.
Looking ahead, organizations plan to accelerate their investments in AI, prioritizing capabilities with clearly defined processes and measurable outcomes, signaling a shift from experimentation to long-term value creation.
Nearly two-thirds say they have begun pausing low-value AI projects to redirect efforts to higher-impact areas.
On average, we expect to allocate 5% of our annual business budget to AI initiatives in 2026, up from 3% in 2025, with a focus on infrastructure, data, governance, and workforce upskilling, with the aim of laying a strong foundation for AI adoption and impact.
“We are now entering a new, more pragmatic era of AI-driven transformation, focused on long-term, enterprise-wide implementation to improve not just productivity, but also revenue, customer experience, risk management, innovation or decision-making,” said Pascal Braillet, Chief Innovation Officer and Group Executive Board Member at Capgemini.
“AI has now crossed a critical threshold. The question is no longer whether to pursue AI, but how to embed it into the corporate structure. As we enter 2026, many organizations are rightly prioritizing a strong AI foundation – data, governance, and human-AI chemistry – but one other area stands out as a critical element for successful AI implementation: leadership readiness.
“The use of AI is now also impacting strategic decision-making. The way leaders set a clear vision for and hold themselves accountable for the use of AI across the enterprise will be key to effectively harnessing the transformative power of AI.”
AI reshapes decision-making
Additionally, a spotlight report on decision making, How AI is secretly reshaping business decisionsconducted a survey of 500 CXOs, including 100 CEOs. It found that more than half of CXOs are currently using AI either “actively” (a trend expected to more than double within the next three years) or “selectively” to support or inform strategic decisions, and nearly a third are currently “experimenting” with AI.
If these CXOs are currently using AI primarily to assist with email, meeting notes and documents, and research and analysis, expect that in three years they will be using AI primarily to enhance and challenge strategic thinking.
Recommended reading
According to the report, early adopters are already delivering value. More than half of CXOs report that using AI reduces decision-making time and cost and increases creativity and foresight. At the same time, leaders have made clear that AI will continue to be an input, not a replacement, for human judgment. Only 1% of CXOs believe that AI will be able to autonomously make certain strategic decisions within the next 1-3 years.
CEOs, CFOs, and COOs are also mindful of the impact of AI-driven decision-making. Just 41% of them report having above-average trust in AI in executive decision-making, and the main concerns for all CXOs are legal and security risks and the difficulty of explaining AI-influenced decisions.
Additionally, many senior leaders remain reluctant to publicly discuss their use of AI. Only 11% of CXOs say they currently emphasize or plan to emphasize the use of AI in business decision-making.
Those who do not want to disclose their use of AI cite concerns about reputational risk if AI-influenced decisions go wrong, and uncertainty about how clients, partners, and the public will perceive the use of AI.
