AI is increasingly integrated into companies' daily operations, but so far it brings more benefits to individual employees than to the business as a whole. According to McKinsey, in 2026, 44% of companies had scaled the technology across the entire organization, up from 38% a year earlier, and 89% use it in at least one area.
Employees feel the effect fully: about 80% of executives and managers and 76% of ordinary employees report an increase in productivity. Approximately half also note that AI helps them learn new skills faster and make more informed decisions.
However, things are more complicated with money. 37% of companies noticed a positive impact of AI on profit, but only 6% received a truly significant effect – their EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) increased by at least 5%. So far, the technology more often helps save on individual processes such as production, logistics, and customer service.
Despite the modest returns, businesses are not going to cut investments: 60% of companies plan to increase AI spending in the coming year. At the same time, expectations of layoffs are growing – 39% of respondents predict them, although only 14% of companies actually reported AI-related layoffs in the past year.
This creates a paradox: neural networks are already significantly accelerating people's work, but businesses have not yet learned how to translate this efficiency into a comparable increase in profit.