AI ROI remains elusive for African firms
Enterprises increasingly measure AI against revenue, costs and productivity, as experimentation gives way to deployment.
Google Cloud and National Research Group's new research reveals that only about one-quarter of enterprises globally are seeing significant financial returns from their AI investments. This finding comes from a survey of 2,403 executives, including 85 in Africa, and an analysis of 1,217 large companies from PwC. The study, titled "From token-maxxing to ROI," found that 26% of enterprises are AI ROI leaders, with financial returns from AI initiatives growing year-on-year.
However, a sizable 58% of organisations reported steadily increasing returns. The gap between those experimenting with AI and those successfully integrating it into operations and generating measurable business outcomes is widening. Kim Schulze, head of digital advisory at Accelera Digital Group, notes that executives are seeing value as they scale revenue or output without proportionally increasing operating costs.
She emphasizes that AI is moving from being a technology experiment to being used to remove friction, transform existing processes, and create measurable business impact. Despite challenges, 97% of respondents plan to increase AI spending in the next fiscal year, driven primarily by AI-powered analytics, decision intelligence, workflow automation, customer experiences, and data and infrastructure modernisation.
Schulze advises a narrow and practical approach: identify friction points, define business outcomes, prioritize based on value potential, and implement the simplest solution delivering impact. The research aligns with PwC's findings, which show that AI-driven financial returns are concentrated among a small group of companies that focus AI investments on growth and reinvention, build fit-for-purpose foundations, and embed AI across their organisations.
Africa lags behind in AI-driven performance, with only 23% of African CEOs reporting revenue increases from AI investments, compared to 25% reporting cost reductions. The focus on AI ROI is also reflected in search behaviour, with searches for "AI ROI" overtaking "how to use AI" on YouTube.
Written by urgent.news from ITWeb's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
