Ai Might Finally Deliver Real Roi For Businesses In 2026 Zdnet

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 18, 2025, 9:27 PM

ai might finally deliver real roi for businesses in 2026 zdnet

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. The AI hype fueled by the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 has only accelerated. Organizations, however, have yet to see much ROI on their mounting investment in the technology -- but experts say that wait may be over in the new year. Based on promises of AI's potential to dramatically optimize operations through new developments in the space, including models that are smarter, cheaper, multimodal, better at reasoning, and even autonomous, business leaders have funneled money... Global corporate AI investment reached $252.3 billion in 2024, and US private AI investment hit $109.1 billion, according to Stanford data -- it's safe to assume those numbers will only continue to grow. Also: Why AI agents failed to take over in 2025 - it's 'a story as old as time,' says Deloitte

But a look back at 2025 reveals a common thread: AI's potential to dramatically optimize operations has not yet been realized across the board. Most memorably, a now-infamous MIT study found that 95% of businesses weren't seeing an ROI from their generative AI spend, with only 5% of integrated AI pilots extracting millions in value. While the criteria for returns are narrowly defined, which partially explains the high percentage, it is still indicative of a wider trend. As 2026 rolls in, ROI is stepping into the AI driver’s seat. After three years of experimenting and spending, and as talk of an AI bubble looms, enterprises are starting to demand results. According to Kyndryl’s recent Readiness Report, drawing on insights from 3,700 business executives, 61% of CEOs say they are under increasing pressure to show returns on their AI investments compared with a year ago.

This is putting company leaders to the test in terms of balancing long-term innovation with the need to prove outcomes now, all while AI development continues to move at breakneck speed. It’s also creating risks of misalignment in the C-suite, with tech and business leaders looking out for their firm’s innovation while financial leaders look out for the balance sheet. “The last year was a lot about experimental budgets, like, ‘I’m just going to give the budget to every department [and] experiment with whatever tools they think are useful,’” said Lexi Reese, a former... “Now, it’s accountable acceleration, because the price tag on this is very expensive.” The unprecedented amount of money being spent to develop and deploy AI has been grabbing headlines all year. Much of this surrounds infrastructure spending by frontier AI labs and eye-popping startup investments, but enterprises are heavily investing, too.

Gartner expects spending on AI application software to more than triple from last year to almost $270 billion in 2026. Over the past year, Reese said she’s had conversations with over 300 customers about their AI tool costs and found they are spending between $590 and $1,400 per employee annually, according to internal data... Follow : Add us as a preferred source on Google. The AI hype fueled by the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 has only accelerated. Organizations, however, have yet to see much ROI on their mounting investment in the technology -- but experts say that wait may be over in the new year. Based on promises of AI's potential to dramatically optimize operations through new developments in the space, including models that are smarter, cheaper, multimodal, better at reasoning, and even autonomous, business leaders have funneled money...

Global corporate AI investment reached $252.3 billion in 2024, and US private AI investment hit $109.1 billion, according to Stanford data -- it's safe to assume those numbers will only continue to grow. Also: Why AI agents failed to take over in 2025 - it's 'a story as old as time,' says Deloitte But a look back at 2025 reveals a common thread: AI's potential to dramatically optimize operations has not yet been realized across the board. Most memorably, a now-infamous MIT study found that 95% of businesses weren't seeing an ROI from their generative AI spend, with only 5% of integrated AI pilots extracting millions in value. While the criteria for returns are narrowly defined, which partially explains the high percentage, it is still indicative of a wider trend. AI ROI in 2026: Why Enterprises Expect Real Business Value

After years of heavy investment and limited financial returns, businesses may finally begin to see meaningful return on investment (ROI) from artificial intelligence in 2026. Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, global corporate AI investment has surged. It reached more than $250 billion in 2024 alone. However, tangible value has remained elusive for most organizations. A widely cited MIT study found that 95% of companies had not achieved measurable ROI from generative AI. This highlights a persistent gap between promise and performance.

Experts now argue that this gap set to narrow, not because of dramatic new breakthroughs in AI models, but due to more disciplined, outcome-driven implementation. Leaders from PwC and Deloitte emphasize that enterprises are shifting away from scattered pilots toward focused deployments in high-impact areas where AI can fundamentally reshape business economics. In 2026, competitive advantage is expecting to come from orchestrating AI effectively, rather than simply adopting it. A major driver of this shift is the operationalization of AI agents. While 2025 was widely hyped as the “year of AI agents,” adoption lagged, with only a small fraction of enterprises deploying agentic systems in production. Analysts now expect 2026 to mark a turning point, as organizations develop better governance, lifecycle management, and control frameworks.

Gartner predicts that by 2028, 15% of day-to-day business decisions will be made autonomously by AI agents, up from virtually zero today. Key trends shaping AI ROI in 2026 include: Get the latest updates delivered to your inbox every day, and stay up-to-date for free 🧠📈 Get the latest updates delivered to your inbox every day, and stay up-to-date for free 🧠📈 AI might finally deliver real ROI for businesses in 2026 - and experts say this is why AI will enter a new phase in 2026, analysts said.

Businesses will better leverage the tech and see results. AI agents and commerce opportunities will be key. The AI hype fueled by the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 has only accelerated. Organizations, however, have yet to see much ROI on their mounting investment in the technology -- but experts say that wait may be over in the new year. Based on promises of AI's potential to dramatically optimize operations through new developments in the space, including models that are smarter, cheaper, multimodal, better at reasoning, and even autonomous, business leaders have funneled money... Global corporate AI investment reached $252.3 billion in 2024, and US private AI investment hit $109.1 billion, according to Stanford data -- it's safe to assume those numbers will only continue to grow.

Also: Why AI agents failed to take over in 2025 - it's 'a story as old as time,' says Deloitte But a look back at 2025 reveals a common thread: AI's potential to dramatically... Most memorably, a now-infamous MIT study found that 95% of businesses weren't seeing an ROI from their generative AI spend, with only 5% of integrated AI pilots extracting millions in value. While the criteria for returns are narrowly defined, which partially explains the high percentage, it is still indicative of a wider trend. "So far, a small group of leaders have converted AI into outsized value -- new revenue pools, new business models, and real valuation premiums -- while most others have settled for 'respectable but modest'... Yet, Priest adds that he thinks the new year will finally see AI's value gap start to close, a position held by nearly every expert ZDNET spoke to. Priest mostly attributed this forthcoming expansion to the precision that CEOs and other business leaders will have to bring to their AI projects by identifying a few high-impact areas where AI can "reshape the...

Also: This company's AI success was built on 5 essential steps - see how they work for you China Widener, Deloitte vice chair and US TMT industry leader, echoed this sentiment, claiming that the... "In 2026, competitive advantage will come not from simply adopting AI, but from orchestrating it -- translating innovation into sustained ROI and new forms of business value," said Widener. It is notable that in both of these predictions, experts highlight that the shift doesn't lie in the evolvement of the technology itself, but rather in how business leaders approach implementing AI into their... How will that get done? There are several key considerations for businesses, starting with the adoption of AI agents. For instance, Widener suggests that embracing AI's agentic capabilities will enable business leaders to meaningfully rethink how teams operate, as well as how they carry out work and generate growth.

Also: The fix for messy AI agent ecosystems might finally be here - and it's open source In theory, the value of AI agents for businesses is simple: these AI assistants can perform tasks... In practice, however, that reality is somewhat more challenging to implement. 2025 was touted by many as the year of AI agents. Yet, as revealed by Deloitte's Tech Trends report this week, the technology did not take off this year despite the hype and promise. In particular, Deloitte's 2025 Emerging Technology Trends study, which surveys 500 US Tech Leaders, found that 30% of the surveyed organizations are exploring agentic options, with 38% piloting solutions and only 14% having solutions... The number of organizations actively using the systems in production is even lower, at 11%.

Also: AI could double the US economy's growth rate over the next decade, says Anthropic Gartner has released similar data saying that over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end... Even still, Gartner analyst Arun Chandrasekaran coined 2026 as the year of "Operationalizing AI agents." "While AI agents are becoming increasingly common as pilot projects, most enterprises are struggling with moving them into production,"... "Ensuring a robust control plane for managing agent lifecycle, instituting governance to secure, red-team, validate and observe agents and building stateful multi-agent systems are all major goal posts for the industry to improve on... AI agents have the potential not only to optimize internal business operations but also to enhance how people execute everyday tasks. For example, one of the most buzzworthy topics related to AI agents is AI for commerce. In their simplest use case, AI agents can help users select the product they need and add items to their cart.

In their ideal state, AI agents will be able to complete transactions on users' behalfs, which could come in handy when purchasing a product at a certain price point or when avoiding tedious tasks... Also: Should you trust AI agents with your holiday shopping? Here's what experts want you to know The latter, more advanced use cases may just be possible in 2026, according to Ken Moore, chief innovation officer at Mastercard. "In 2026, two powerful forces will converge -- AI-driven autonomy and the evolution of trust -- as agentic commerce moves from early adoption to scale," said Moore. "Consumers will shift from manual operators to strategic orchestrators, delegating routine decisions to AI like replenishment or travel booking." Beyond agents, a central puzzle piece in how businesses will successfully implement AI is proper... Forrester predicts that by 2026, 30% of large enterprises will make AI fluency training mandatory to lift AI adoption and reduce risk.

This is a major departure from what we have seen thus far. Deloitte found that only 7% of AI spend goes to changing the culture and training, and learning. An October 2025 Wharton study also found that investment in training is softening, dropping eight percentage points year over year. Also: The great AI skills disconnect - and how to fix it This lack of adoption is an impediment to successful AI implementation, with Forrester data showing that 21% of AI decision-makers cite employee... Kim Herrington, a Forrester senior analyst, added that an improperly trained workforce is a recipe for risk. "AI runs on data, and employees shape that data every day (often without realizing it)," she said.

"Poor literacy and fluency lead to poor inputs or behaviors, which cascade into flawed decisions or poorly trained AI models that can rapidly scale access to misinformation." Herrington said that mandatory training will help... While a lot of AI delivery predictions for 2026 seem to rely on AI agents, it is worth hedging expectations, as the change won't happen overnight or be seamless. Also: 5 ways to prevent your AI strategy from going bust "Agents will still be imperfect, and that's okay," said Priest. "The difference in 2026 is that more companies will have real benchmarks, clearer guardrails, and a repeatable playbook. Combined with a tighter, top-down focus on where agents are deployed, that's what will turn agentic AI from experimentation into real enterprise transformation." The big AI New Year's resolution for businesses in 2026: ROI | Fortune

If you’ve been waiting for AI promises to materialize, 2026 may be your year — and this unexpected element could be the key. Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. The AI hype fueled by the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 has only accelerated. Organizations, however, have yet to see much ROI on their mounting investment in the technology — but experts say that wait may be over in the new year. Based on promises of AI’s potential to dramatically optimize operations through new developments in the space, including models that are smarter, cheaper, multimodal, better at reasoning, and even autonomous, business leaders have funneled money... Global corporate AI investment reached $252.3 billion in 2024, and US private AI investment hit $109.1 billion, according to Stanford data — it’s safe to assume those numbers will only continue to grow.

Ai Might Finally Deliver Real Roi For Businesses In 2026 Zdnet

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