Companies seeing the most value from emerging technologies are looking beyond efficiency and towards wider transformation efforts, according to a new report from McKinsey.
One objective setting high performers apart from competitors is the ability to redesign workflows through those tools, according to McKinsey’s survey of nearly 2,000 employees.
“High performers are … nearly three times as likely as others are to say their organisations have fundamentally redesigned individual workflows,” the report said. “Organisations seeing the greatest impact from AI often aim to achieve more than cost reductions from these technologies.”
Overall, AI use continues to broaden: 88% report regular AI use in at least one business function, compared with 78% last year. At an enterprise level, however, most respondents state that scaling AI remains primarily in pilot, experimental phases.
For most companies, AI’s potential on a larger scale is unrealised, according to the report. AI use cases are creating cost benefits across companies, and 64% of respondents noted that AI has been a catalyst for innovation. But only 39% report EBIT impact at the enterprise level.
Respondents using AI to leverage enterprise-wide innovation were more likely than others to report achieving a range of qualitative enterprise-level benefits, the report found. Those benefits included improved customer satisfaction, competitive differentiation, profitability, revenue growth, and change in market share.
Most respondents report that efficiency gains are an objective of their organisations’ AI use, but high performers have higher aspirations in mind. “In most business functions, AI high performers are at least three times more likely than their peers to report that they are scaling their use of agents,” the report said.
What is enabling those organisations to outpace competitors? According to McKinsey’s survey, companies excelling across scaling and adoption have strong leadership support and a clear road map to help them achieve their goals.
Forty-eight per cent of respondents from high-performing companies strongly agreed that leaders demonstrate strong ownership and commitment to AI initiatives, compared with 16% of respondents at companies that aren’t high performers. Additionally, McKinsey found that high performers are more likely to employ a range of practices to measure value from AI use, including data, strategy, and talent, among others.
Nearly half of respondents from companies with more than $5 billion in revenue have reached the scaling phase, compared with 29% of companies with less than $100 million in revenue, the report said. High performers are often in a better position to increase investment, with more than one-third committing more than 20% of their digital budgets to AI technologies.
— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Steph Brown at Stephanie.Brown@aicpa-cima.com.