{
  "id": 16759165,
  "title": "A whopping 3% of boardroom execs spy productivity and costs savings from AI",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/27/a-whopping-3-of-boardroom-execs-spy-productivity-and-costs-savings",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-27T14:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Register Science",
    "slug": "the-register-science",
    "url": "https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/10/27/a-whopping-3-of-boardroom-execs-spy-productivity-and-costs-savings-from-ai/5305675"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Three-quarters of corporate board members anticipate AI to enhance productivity and reduce expenses, yet a mere three percent of companies have achieved their goals, based on insights from Gartner's HR Symposium. The report revealed that 38 percent of firms are overspending on AI and 85 percent intend to continue their investment next year. CV Viverito, Gartner's senior director analyst for HR practice, clarified that organizations will not reap cost savings from AI at present. The real potential lies in employing AI for tasks previously unattainable, such as reallocating employee time to new capabilities, outcomes, and growth opportunities. A significant issue is that 75 percent of business leaders are not aligned with the rest of the organization regarding AI's value creation, which hinders transformation efforts and complicates workforce positioning and return attainment. Gartner recommends focusing AI efforts on the most critical business operations, with HR assisting executives in identifying top priorities based on strategy. Additionally, companies should disseminate existing AI expertise throughout the organization instead of waiting for scarce specialists, and grant managers the flexibility to redesign work around the technology. According to Viverito, only about one in five employees' time is liberated by AI, enabling them to shift towards more innovative tasks. \"The challenge isn't creating capacity; it's making that capacity usable and redirecting it to what's valuable,\" he emphasized. This necessitates equipping employees with skills for higher-value, AI-enabled work, which involves additional training expenses. Ultimately, achieving returns on AI projects proves more challenging than anticipated, necessitating companies' persistence and readiness to make workforce adjustments before experiencing tangible benefits. A Forrester report projected that AI will constitute 20 percent of all business technology expenditure next year, but over half of CIOs are expected to fall short of their ROI goals for the technology. Furthermore, a KPMG study this year discovered that most UK business leaders intend to maintain AI as a top spending priority, despite its lack of immediate measurable returns, with 65 percent planning to continue investment regardless. The sustainability of this commitment remains uncertain. Recently, private equity giant Apollo Global Management joined the chorus of doubts, noting that the Magnificent Seven tech giants are benefiting from AI expenditures, while the rest of the S&P 500 has not witnessed AI boosting productivity growth.",
  "summary": "A load more are spending more than they expected and forecast to shell out even more in 2027",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}