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The best laid plans of mice and men often…don’t have ROI in mind.
That’s how many companies are operating with respect to their generative AI investments, according to a new study from KPMG: Amid booming GenAI investments, the majority of companies don’t have a plan for measuring their success.
Among the respondents, 44% said their organizations were in the process of scaling up their generative AI usage, moving past the “research, experimentation and planning phases,” per the Big Four accounting firm.
The problem is that only 15% of respondents said their orgs have developed “measurable business outcomes and tangible growth” for those investments. The firm polled 100 US-based business leaders managing companies with annual revenues of at least $1 billion.
Companies do have a sense of what ROI metrics might look like. For Q3, respondents ranked revenue generation as the top ROI metric for AI efforts, followed by profitability and productivity. In Q1 of this year, productivity took the top slot, and Q3’s emphasis on growing revenue could suggest a changing tide in priorities.
In any case, KPMG found a continued appetite for strategic AI investments among business leaders. Respondents said they expected to spend an average of $37 million on M&A dealmaking over the next year to bolster their generative AI efforts. And they expected to spend an average of $25 million on hiring new tech talent, as well as $24 million on collaborations with relevant companies.
“Despite trending skepticism in the media around GenAI, business leaders overwhelmingly see it as truly transformative. More and more, we’re seeing levels of investment in tech, data and talent to support GenAI that match the potential disruption on the horizon,” Steve Chase, KPMG US’s vice chair of AI and digital innovation, said in a statement.