Is Your AI Strategy Boosting Your Bottom Line?

You don’t have to look hard for media reports that someone or other is concerned that artificial intelligence (AI) is a bubble.  There seems to be a new headline each week suggesting that the hype can’t last, companies are overvalued, and reality will eventually catch up with outsized expectations. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, when you get away from vibes and into actual research, Generative AI adoption is escalating rapidly, with large increases in productivity gains and enterprise AI initiatives showing improved ROI.   

Wharton Human-AI Research, part of the Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, for the third successive year has commissioned GBK Collective to perform research and analysis on AI Industry adoption. Over 800 senior business decision-makers were queried for the 2025 survey.  The results show that AI is rapidly becoming a part of the fabric of the business world.  

In the survey’s first incarnation in 2023, 37% of business leaders reported using Gen AI at least weekly.  Wharton termed this Wave 1: Exploration. 

Wave 2: Experimentation highlighted 72% of respondents reporting using Gen AI at least weekly in 2024, with greater investment and impact in their businesses. 

2025 is being called Wave 3 Accountable Acceleration, with 82% using Gen AI at least weekly and three out of four seeing positive returns in Gen AI investments within their organizations.   About a third of rapidly growing AI budgets are being allocated to internal research to develop custom capabilities based on foundational AI tools. 

Researchers predict that 2026 will prove to be an inflection point, with faster returns on AI investments, increasing budgets, more customization for competitive advantage, and a greater focus on the key human capital aspects of AI earning greater focus, as AI skills are desperately needed in the workplace.    

Wharton’s full report, Accountable Acceleration: Gen AI Fast Tracks into the Enterprise is worth studying, and provides a treasure trove of data points that show if you’re not adopting AI successfully the danger of falling behind your competitors is high.