Artificial intelligence is making employees more productive, but companies are still struggling to convert those gains into meaningful financial returns, according to McKinsey’s latest global survey on the state of AI.
The report found that 80% of respondents said AI had improved their productivity, while around half said the technology helped them develop new skills and make better decisions at work. However, only 37% of respondents said AI had contributed positively to their organisations’ earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT).
The disconnect between employee-level benefits and enterprise-level financial impact remains one of the biggest challenges for companies deploying AI. McKinsey said the 37% figure was essentially unchanged from 2025, despite an increase in the number of organisations scaling AI technologies.
The report suggests that simply giving employees access to AI tools may not be enough to generate significant financial returns. Companies need to redesign workflows and rethink how AI is integrated into business operations.
The financial benefits that companies are already seeing are concentrated in specific functions. Respondents most frequently reported AI-related cost reductions in supply chain management, service operations and manufacturing. On the revenue side, marketing and sales and product or service development were the functions most commonly associated with revenue gains.
The findings indicate that the AI investment story is moving into a more difficult phase. The initial question for companies was whether employees would use AI. Increasingly, the question is whether organisations can redesign their operations sufficiently to turn that usage into measurable financial performance.
McKinsey’s findings also show that the gap is not necessarily about AI capability alone. The companies gaining the most value tend to combine AI deployment with workflow redesign, leadership involvement, impact measurement and risk management.
For businesses, therefore, the next phase of the AI race may be less about adopting another tool and more about changing how work itself gets done.
