Four years into the generative AI boom, McKinsey’s latest State of AI survey says enterprises are finally “on the road to ROI” – while its own data shows earnings impact has not budged. The firm polled 1,719 professionals and business leaders worldwide.
Just 37% of respondents attribute at least some EBIT impact to AI use, roughly the same share as last year’s survey. Only 6% qualify as high performers, defined as attributing at least 5% of EBIT to AI and describing the impact as significant – flat since 2025.
Investment keeps climbing anyway. Organizations’ conviction in AI is growing faster than the returns they can measure, McKinsey said, with more companies planning to spend and expecting AI to reshape their business within three years. Agentic AI adoption jumped, with 40% of respondents at companies over $1B in revenue scaling AI agents versus 27% last year, and nearly a third said they passed on buying software to build it in-house with agentic coding tools.
Costs are biting: 20% of respondents say AI-related operating costs have constrained their use of the technology, even as 80% of individual users report productivity gains. Job expectations are shifting too, with 39% expecting AI-driven headcount cuts in the coming year versus 32% in 2025, though McKinsey notes 2025’s actual reductions fell well short of what respondents had anticipated.
Report coauthor Michael Chui said “some ROI is already being achieved” but called it “a journey, not a destination.”
