U.S. businesses collectively invested between $35 billion and $40 billion in AI initiatives, yet 95% report no return on investment or no measurable profit impact while 5% report value. Data sources included 150 interviews with AI leaders, analysis of 300 AI applications, and a survey of 350 employees. Most pilot programs fail because of brittle workflows, lack of contextual learning, and misalignment with day-to-day operations. Generic AI tools often stall and produce little measurable profit impact because they do not adapt to established corporate workflows. AI yields higher ROI on back-office repetitive tasks; sales and marketing deployments underperform.
A recent MIT report, titled "The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025," reveals that while U.S. businesses have collectively invested between $35 billion and $40 billion in AI initiatives, almost all of them (95%) are seeing zero return on their investments or no measurable impact on profits. Only 5% are seeing "value" from AI.
The research, which was based on 150 interviews with AI leaders, an examination of 300 AI applications, and a survey of 350 employees at various companies, found that most AI pilot programs fail to hit targets because of "brittle workflows, lack of contextual learning, and misalignment with day-to-day operations." In other words, the AI tools do not fit into accepted corporate workflows. Generic tools like ChatGPT "stall" and provide "little to no measurable impact" on profit and loss because they don't adapt to a company's established way of doing things, the authors found.
Another key issue is that companies were using AI for the wrong assignments. The research shows that AI works best with back-office tasks with a high return-on-investment (ROI), like administrative and repetitive functions, which many companies outsource. However, more than half of the funds spent on AI projects tried to use the technology for sales and marketing, two areas that the researchers say still need human involvement and have a lower ROI.
The 5% of programs that do succeed in deploying AI seem to focus on one issue. Aditya Challapally, the MIT researcher who led the study, told Fortune that some large companies and younger startups are "excelling" with AI because "they pick one pain point, execute well, and partner smartly with companies who use their"
Collection
[
|
...
]