Companies are expanding their use of artificial intelligence, but the technology’s clear gains for individual workers have yet to produce a broad improvement in corporate profits, according to a global McKinsey survey.
Almost nine in 10 respondents said their organisation regularly used AI in at least one business function, while 44% said deployment had reached an enterprise-wide scale. Yet only 37% reported a meaningful effect on earnings before interest and tax (EBIT), a proportion that has remained broadly unchanged over the past year.
The findings, based on responses from 1,719 professionals and business leaders across 97 countries, underline the difficulty companies face in converting enthusiasm for AI into measurable financial returns. The survey was conducted between May 4 and June 8, 2026, with results weighted according to each country’s contribution to global GDP.
At an individual level, the reported benefits are considerably stronger. Four in five respondents said AI had improved their productivity, while half said it had helped them make better decisions. The gains, however, are not yet consistently flowing through to the balance sheet.
That is happening despite rising investment. More than a quarter of respondents said AI accounted for over 10% of their information and communications technology budget, and 60% expected their organisation to increase spending over the next year.
Costs are becoming a constraint for some businesses. One in five respondents said expenses associated with AI, including the cost of processing tokens, were limiting its use. The survey also found that 32% of organisations had decided against buying at least one software product or feature after using AI-powered coding tools to build an alternative internally.
Workflow redesign linked to stronger AI returns
The companies reporting the greatest financial gains appear to be taking a different approach from those simply adding AI to existing processes.
McKinsey classifies 6% of respondents as “AI high performers” because they attribute at least 5% of EBIT to the technology and report significant value from its use. Nearly three-quarters of these organisations said they had fundamentally redesigned workflows around AI, up from 55% in the previous year.
By contrast, only about a quarter of other respondents reported having redesigned workflows in a fundamental way. The higher-performing group was also more likely to pursue growth and innovation alongside efficiency savings, rather than treating AI solely as a cost-cutting tool.
The survey suggests that successful companies are changing how work is organised before deciding where technology should be inserted. They are also more likely to have senior leadership involvement and formal processes for measuring the impact of AI initiatives.
Large businesses are moving fastest. Fifty-four per cent of organisations with annual revenue above $1 billion said they were scaling AI across the enterprise, compared with about one-third of smaller companies.
The gap was even more pronounced in the use of AI agents. Among larger organisations, the proportion scaling agents in at least one function rose from 27% to 40% in a year. Adoption among smaller businesses remained flat at 22%.
For finance directors and chief financial officers, the results point to a challenge beyond approving larger technology budgets. The companies extracting the most value from AI are also reassessing their workflows, operating models and methods of measuring performance.
