The AI Decision Gap: New Research Into AI Investment and ROI

AI investment is accelerating across UK businesses, but measuring the return on that investment isn’t always straightforward. New research from Air IT Group suggests there is still a significant gap between investing in AI and being able to prove what that investment is delivering.

We surveyed 504 decision-makers at UK organisations to understand how businesses are approaching AI investment, measuring its impact and deciding where to go next. More than four in five (83%) said that at least some of their AI spending had delivered no measurable return, or that their organisation did not measure returns at all.

It’s a challenge we’ve called The AI Decision Gap.

What is the AI Decision Gap?

The AI Decision Gap is the disconnect between investing in AI and having the evidence and clarity to determine whether it’s delivering value and where further investment should be made.

AI has moved quickly up the business agenda. But our research suggests that for some organisations, investment is moving faster than the decisions around it.

41% of respondents said their organisation had purchased or introduced an AI tool before agreeing what problem it should solve. And among respondents reporting at least one active AI initiative, 74% said not all initiatives had both an agreed business objective and a measure of success.

That matters because adopting AI and creating value from it are not the same thing.

Are businesses seeing a return on AI investment?

The research raises a bigger question for organisations investing in AI: how do you know whether that investment is working?

Introducing an AI tool is relatively easy. Understanding whether it has improved productivity, reduced costs, created capacity or delivered another meaningful business outcome is much harder if the objective and measures of success aren’t clear from the outset.

Moving from AI adoption to business value

The challenge facing businesses now isn’t simply whether to adopt AI. It’s how to make better decisions about where to invest, how to measure success and which initiatives are worth taking further. Our new report explores what’s happening as AI moves from experimentation into wider use, including:

• Why promising AI pilots don’t always progress
• What can sit behind apparent AI productivity gains
• Why demonstrating return on AI investment remains difficult
• What happens when pressure to adopt gets ahead of purpose
• What meaningful AI success should look like
• How businesses can make better decisions about what happens next

Rather than simply asking “Where can we use AI?”, the research points to a more important conversation about where AI can create genuine business value and how organisations can prove it.

Download The AI Decision Gap report

The full AI Decision Gap Report brings together the findings from our research with 504 UK decision-makers, exploring AI investment, measurement and the challenges organisations are encountering as they put AI into practice.  

If your organisation is already investing in AI, experimenting with new tools or deciding where to focus next, download the report to see the full findings and what they could mean for your AI strategy.