Gartner found that only 22% of organizations have scaled AI across several business units. About 11% do not know what their function spent on AI last year. Spending is still rising: 85% of functional leaders plan to increase AI budgets in 2026. Leaders devoted an average 12% of functional budgets to AI in 2025. Gartner distinguishes high performers, who track returns and cut weak projects. Those firms reported positive returns on 81% of their AI initiatives. Low performers could not state the return for 29% of initiatives. Productivity was the top target outcome for 75% of leaders. The most popular uses were often not the most profitable ones. Threat detection and service desk automation were widely pursued, while asset and cost optimisation paid off more often.

• 22% scaled AI across units
• 11% unaware of AI spend
• 85% will raise AI spend in 2026
• 12% of budgets went to AI