NewsThe AI ROI Plateau Is Now Two Years Old - And Nobody Is Surprised
The share of enterprises whose AI ROI fails to outpace their investment has held at 57% since 2025 - unchanged despite a year of improving AI production capability. Domino Data Lab's Fifth Annual Enterprise AI Report, based on a global survey of 639 senior enterprise AI leaders at organizations with revenues of $100M or more, found that 93% report improved production capability in 2026. The ability to build AI is improving. The ability to convert that capability into financial returns is not.
The finding mirrors independent MIT NANDA research published earlier in the year, which found that 95% of organizations running AI pilots saw no measurable P&L impact. The conclusion is consistent across methodologies: the barrier to AI ROI is not technical - it is architectural.
Why it matters
Two years of data at the same plateau tells you this is not a short-term adoption lag. Organizations that have not yet redesigned their processes around AI - rather than deploying AI alongside unchanged processes - are not catching up on their own.
