Artificial intelligence may have become mainstream inside companies, but only a small minority appear to be generating significant financial value from it.
Just 6% of respondents in McKinsey’s 2026 global survey qualify as “AI high performers”—organisations that attribute at least 5% of EBIT to AI use and report seeing significant value from the technology. The proportion is unchanged from 2025.
The finding highlights a growing divide between AI adoption and AI returns.
Many organisations are experimenting with or scaling AI, but the companies generating the strongest results are approaching the technology differently. McKinsey found that high performers are more likely to use AI not just for efficiency, but also for growth and innovation.
Around 80% of both high performers and other respondents said they were pursuing efficiency gains from AI. But high performers were considerably more likely to pursue growth and innovation objectives alongside efficiency. They were also 3.3 times more likely than other organisations to intend to use AI to fundamentally transform their businesses over the next three years.
Workflow redesign appears to be another important differentiator.
Nearly three-quarters of AI high performers said they had fundamentally redesigned workflows because of AI, compared with only about one-quarter of other respondents. The figure among high performers was up from 55% a year earlier.
The report suggests that the winners are not necessarily those that simply spend the most money on AI. Instead, they are integrating the technology into broader organisational changes.
High performers are also more likely to have senior leaders actively involved in AI initiatives and to have processes for measuring the impact of those initiatives. They are more likely to manage AI-related risks and determine where human oversight is required.
The message for corporate leaders is increasingly clear: AI adoption alone is not a competitive advantage.
The real advantage may come from the ability to redesign businesses around the technology—and measure whether those changes actually produce financial value.
