Skip to content
2026 Report

State of Enterprise AI: The AI Value Gap

AI is creating visible operational gains for many enterprises. However, it's not yet consistently producing business and financial value.

1920x1080 AI Report

2026 AI Adoption & Performance

Most organizations say AI works well and employees are using it. User adoption, agent utilization, governance and model accuracy all rate about expectations.

Operational impact gets mixed reviews, with employee productivity gains coming in slightly below what was expected, and most business and financial outcomes have fallen far short.

Today, nearly a quarter of AI work is reviewed by humans and almost 14% involves humans only for exception handling. The role of the human employee is moving away from completing every task and toward managing the conditions in which AI performs the work.

55 %
of AI work is human-led today. This is expected to shrink below 40% by the end of 2027.
69 %
will keep increasing AI budgets if they continue gaining value at the current rate.
4.3 %
average increase in employee decision quality. AI’s strongest workforce impact, level with the creation of new AI talent roles.
13 %
of AI work autonomous by the end of 2027. Nearly double today’s share of less than 7%.

Leading AI Use Cases

More than 40% of enterprises report that AI has generated the most value over the last 12 months through workflow-centered uses.

  • Task automation and workflow execution

  • Data analysis and insights generation

  • Process optimization and operational improvement

Requiring people to validate these functions can create bottlenecks when AI produces results faster than employees can review them. Enterprises can avoid that by applying AI to higher-value roles within workflows, such as monitoring information and gathering context to identify issues for humans to assess.

State of AI Overview

AI Value Realization is Not a Linear Journey From Adoption to Success

Organizations can use AI extensively and experience very different outcomes.

Three categories

The differentiator is an organization’s ability to convert AI into value while managing the technology, workforce and economic challenges that come with it. 

 

Let's Dive In...

To generate value from AI, enterprises need to modernize their data, simplify the technology stack, redesign the way employees work, clarify the economics of AI and set clear governance guardrails. These changes will help turn today’s AI activity into tomorrow’s measurable business and financial results.

State of Enterprise AI - Value Report 2026

Page Count: 34

Meet the Team

Loren Absher

Loren Absher

Director, Americas Lead – AI Advisory

Loren Absher

Loren Absher

Loren Absher leads ISG’s AI Advisory practice in the Americas. He helps clients unlock business value from AI by bringing together all the elements required for success: the foundational data enablement strategies that make AI possible, the selection of the right use cases aligned to business priorities, the sourcing strategies that connect enterprises with the right provider ecosystem, and the implementation and adoption frameworks that drive sustained results, ensuring client strategies are consistently translated into outcomes. 

View Profile
Alex Bakker

Alex Bakker

Distinguished Analyst

Alex Bakker

Alex Bakker

Alex leads the Primary Research Team where he focuses on study design, panel research, and interview based research for ISG. In addition to leading the Primary Research practice at ISG, Alex also serves as the lead analyst on provider pursuit effectiveness, and helps IT service providers understand how they can improve performance in the competitive process. 

 

View Profile
Dr. Dorotea Baljević

Dr. Dorotea Baljević

Director, EMEA Lead - AI Advisory

Dr. Dorotea Baljević

Dr. Dorotea Baljević

Dorotea Baljević is a Director within the AI Acceleration Unit, enabling clients in their business, AI and data transformations while delivering value across the entire ecosystem.

Dorotea provides support and counsel to customers in their current and future digital journeys. Particularly focusing on improving and enhancing data and AI capabilities for the decision-making ecosystem to ensure healthy organisational longevity and relevance. This includes a focus on value driven outcomes, responsible use of data and AI, and shaping authentic and right-size solutions that align to the clients current and strategic needs.

Her spectrum of experience includes innovation, green-field environments, existing transformations (including building high performing teams), governance, regulatory preparation and compliance, development of digital threads and decommissioning.

View Profile
Michael Dornan

Michael Dornan

Principal Analyst

Michael Dornan

Michael Dornan

Michael Dornan is a Principal Analyst in Provider Services based in the UK. He is responsible for ISG’s Buyer Behavior research program, helping providers navigate changing market dynamics, identify unmet enterprise demand, and position services and solutions that align to client needs.

View Profile
Steve Hall

Steve Hall

Chief AI Officer

Steve Hall

Steve Hall

Steve Hall is Chief AI Officer, leading the firm’s work to help clients create an AI strategy, select the right business partners and deliver meaningful value and outcomes. His industry-leading expertise in navigating the complexities of adopting technology at scale is helping both clients and ISG leverage AI to drive value into every aspect of their operations. Steve joined ISG in 2005 and has led ISG Digital Advisory Services, Emerging Technology Services, Global Product Engineering and Application Development & Maintenance. Trained as a software engineer, he serves on the Advisory Board of Consortium for Information & Software Quality (CISQ). He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Regis University.

View Profile
Stanton Jones

Stanton Jones

Distinguished Analyst

Stanton Jones

Stanton Jones

Stanton helps enterprise technology leaders, IT service providers and buy- and sell-side professionals make sense of the global IT services sector. Stanton's weekly briefing - the Index Insider - is read by thousands of industry stakeholders each week.

View Profile
Angela Kreiter

Angela Kreiter

Principal Analyst

Angela Kreiter

Angela Kreiter

Angela Kreiter is a Principal Analyst at ISG.

View Profile
Olga Kupriyanova

Olga Kupriyanova

Principal Consultant, AI & Data Engineering

Olga Kupriyanova

Olga Kupriyanova

In ISG, Olga supports our advisory capability in developing digital solutions with special focus on data and analytics. Olga’s extensive knowledge of analytics and data engineering framework combined with hands on experience in complex transformational projects results in unique insights invaluable for effectively assessing the data analytics solutions for ISG’s clients.

View Profile
David Menninger

David Menninger

Executive Director, Software Research and Distinguished Analyst

David Menninger

David Menninger

David manages the software research and advisory for IT and leads the expertise in AI.  He oversees the team and expertise areas for software used by IT and for what is used by business. David leads the software research efforts in AI for IT and AI-infused software building on over three decades of experience in data and analytics. For decades, he has brought to market leading-edge analytics and data products in marketing and product leadership positions at Pivotal (a division of EMC), Vertica Systems, Oracle, Applix, InforSense, and IRI Software. David earned his MS in Business from Bentley University and a BS in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

View Profile
Colleen Sivill

Colleen Sivill

Director

Colleen Sivill

Colleen Sivill

Colleen leads systems integration and organizational transformation initiatives for Enterprise Change. In this role she partners with clients to make purpose driven decisions around change management, communications, and culture challenges that surface during large-scale change. This holistic and integrated approach delivers change for today while simultaneously strengthening an organization’s ability to continuously change – leaving it healthier, more agile, and always improving. 

View Profile
Eryn Peters

Eryn Peters

Director - AIM Product & Commercial Strategy

Eryn Peters

Eryn Peters

Eryn Peters is Director - AIM Product & Commercial Strategy at ISG.

View Profile
Decorative color bar

Do you have a question, comment or suggestion?