TDAI Matt Wood video
Are you ready to join the AI leaders?
AI is everywhere. But ROI isn’t. PwC’s new AI performance study reveals that a small set of top-performing companies—the AI leaders—are already translating AI into real ROI.
For these companies, using AI for productivity is table stakes. They’re taking AI much further—using it to reinvent and grow.
They start with what matters. Build only what’s needed. And scale what works.
Want to join the AI leaders? Here’s how.
“Many companies are busy rolling out AI pilots, but only a minority are converting that activity into measurable financial returns. The leaders stand out because they point AI at growth, not just cost reduction, and back that ambition with the foundations that make AI scalable and reliable.”
Trusted and recognised
74%
of all AI-driven returns are being captured by just 20% of companies
Is your company AI fit?
AI fitness is the ability to focus AI on the outcomes that matter, build the foundations that enable AI to deliver ROI, and then rapidly scale what works—turning pilots into profit.
The most AI-fit companies are getting a 7.2x AI-driven performance boost—a combination of AI-driven revenues and cost reductions—over their peers.
Discover more about the nine factors of AI fitness below.
Why it matters
Becoming AI-fit builds the muscle to pull more ROI from AI.
Your next move
Take stock of your AI-fitness level by reviewing your company’s performance on the nine AI fitness factors outlined below.
2.6x
as likely to say AI has helped reinvent your business model if you’re an AI leader versus the rest
Are you using AI for reinvention—or just efficiency?
The leading companies aim AI at growth and use it to innovate. They’re 2.6x as likely as others to say AI enhances their ability to reinvent business models and 1.2x as likely to use AI to drive revenue. They target where value is moving and tightly manage AI bets like an investment portfolio—with clear owners and metrics.
And the AI leaders win where sector boundaries blur. They’re 1.8x as likely to use AI to find emerging value pools, 3x as likely to collaborate across sectors, twice as likely to compete beyond them—and they fast-track “industry convergence” use cases with senior sponsorship.
Why it matters
The biggest returns come when AI changes what you sell and how you create value, not just how quickly you execute tasks.
Your next move
Identify two growth bets AI could unlock this year and define what proof of success looks like.
2.4x
as likely to build reusable AI assets if you’re part of the AI leaders group
Are your foundations fit-for-purpose?
The most AI-fit companies have strong foundational capabilities, including workforce skills, tech stacks and data quality, governance and risk management. AI leaders also invest 2.5x more than others, and do it nimbly—building only what’s needed to get AI working hard to achieve their strategic priorities. When AI sits on strong foundations, it creates twice as much value.
Why it matters
Reuse makes AI cheaper, faster, and more reliable with every deployment.
Your next move
Design application components with reuse in mind right from the start.
2x
as likely to use AI that operates autonomously— if you’re a top-performing company
Are you hardwiring AI across the enterprise—or in silos?
The biggest performance gains accrue when AI does real work on its own: making routine decisions, handling straightforward tasks, even improving its own performance. The AI leaders hardwire AI into every facet of their business, quickly scaling successful pilots enterprise-wide, and deep into complex operations. They’re 2x as likely to embed AI end‑to‑end across the value chain—from corporate strategy to procurement, and from the back-office to the customer experience.
Why it matters
Across all operational performance outcomes we tested, automating decisions links most strongly to AI-driven performance.
Your next move
Phase autonomy into a high-frequency workflow, progressing AI use from assisting to executing on its own within established guard rails.
“AI return on investment comes down to execution discipline: clear metrics, fast stop‑or‑scale decisions, and designs built for reuse. Value shows up when AI is embedded in everyday workflows, not isolated pilots.”
AI leaders outperform
2x
as likely as others to use AI to compete beyond your sector
Why it matters
Capturing growth opportunities from industry convergence is the strongest AI fitness factor influencing AI-driven performance.
Your next move
Use AI to find emerging value pools, and then point AI at the most attractive opportunities that customers will pay for.
2x
the improvement in AI-driven performance when companies bolster increased AI use with stronger foundations
Why it matters
Delivering use cases without the ability to repeat them reliably delivers lower ROI.
Your next move
Before expanding your AI footprint, identify the one or two foundation capabilities most likely to block repeatability and fix them for the highest-value initiatives first.
80%
more likely to systematically track the business impact of AI initiatives
Why it matters
Without a way to measure results, there's no way to know if your AI investments are delivering returns.
Your next move
Stand up a monthly “scale or stop” review. Only projects with measured movement on a defined business metric get more funding.
Get the full story on using AI for growth
What are the nine factors of AI fitness?
AI fitness is composed of 60 areas of AI management and investment practice, rolled up into nine factors in two broad categories:
- AI foundations—strategy, investment, workforce, data and technology, governance, and innovation
- AI use—breadth and depth, sophistication, and capturing value from industry convergence.
Explore the graphic below to discover more and benchmark your organisation’s fitness against sector peers and the AI leaders.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Breadth and depth
How much AI is used across your organisation’s value chain and how deeply AI is deployed into workflows within each function.
The AI leaders’ score for breadth and depth is roughly twice as high as the rest.
Watch Joe Atkinson, PwC’s Global Chief AI Officer, explain more about breadth and depth of AI use, what leaders do differently, and what you can do to join them.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Sophistication
A measure of a company’s most advanced AI applications. Think of this variable as a spectrum—from using AI simply to summarise long texts all the way through to building autonomous, self-optimising agents to orchestrate multiple interdependent tasks. The AI leaders are twice as likely to use AI that operates autonomously.
Watch Scott Likens, PwC’s Global Chief AI Engineer, explain more about sophisticated AI applications and the value they can create.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Capturing value from industry convergence
The extent to which AI is used for cross-sector competition or collaboration. That could be sensing emerging value pools between sectors, responding to shifts in customer needs, or collaborating across sectors to unlock new value from customers or ecosystem partnerships.
AI leaders are more likely to use AI to derive growth from industry convergence, the strongest AI-fitness factor influencing AI-driven performance.
Watch Nicki Wakefield, PwC’s Global Clients and Industries Leader, explain what AI leaders are doing differently and what all organisations can do with AI to capture value in motion.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Strategy
The strength of connection between corporate strategy and AI deployment. Does the organisation have a prioritised AI road map? Is every use case linked to a clear business objective? Is business impact tracked? And is anyone accountable for AI outcomes?
Watch Daria Vlasova, AI Strategy & Go-To-Market lead, PwC UK, explain how the AI leaders root their AI planning in their strategic growth priorities.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Investment
The funding and resourcing for AI. Are investment levels sufficient? Can resources be reallocated nimbly as priorities shift while still supporting longer-horizon innovation?
Leading companies are more likely to invest sufficiently, reallocate funds with agility, and invest for long-term results.
Watch Teresa Owusu-Adjei, PwC’s Clients and Markets Leader, Global Tax and Legal Services, explain how the AI leaders manage their AI investments.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Data and technology
The degree to which a business has modern, scalable platforms and trusted, varied data sources accessible to everyone. Also critical: reusable AI components and replicable, redesigned workflows in priority applications.
Compared to the chasing pack, AI leaders are more than twice as likely to have eliminated outdated and costly IT applications, systems, and infrastructure.
Watch Scott Likens, PwC’s Global Chief AI Engineer, explain the criticality of high-quality data and the right tech foundations—in the right places—for achieving ROI with AI.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Workforce
A measure of whether leaders and employees have the skills, incentives, collaboration models, and levels of trust needed to build AI and use it effectively in day-to-day decisions.
AI leaders are 1.7 times as likely as other firms to say their employees participate in ongoing, role-based AI-learning sessions. And those employees have twice as much trust in the insights generated by AI.
Watch Pete Brown, PwC’s Global Workforce Leader, explain how AI can help unite human potential with tech power.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Governance and risk
The security, access controls, regulatory compliance processes, ethical frameworks, and oversight bodies needed to manage risk from AI design to deployment.
AI leaders are 1.6x as likely to have a Responsible AI framework that guides AI strategy—including use case selection, design, deployment, and ongoing monitoring.
Watch Kazi Islam, PwC’s Global Assurance Strategy and Growth Leader, discuss the importance of AI risk management and how to build trust in AI.
SYC 2.0 SME video
Innovation
How innovation-friendly—yet rigorous—a company is. Does your business have dedicated innovation infrastructure, like sandbox environments? Embedded ownership of innovation within business units? And a cadence of portfolio reviews to test, prioritise, scale, and stop AI initiatives?
AI leaders are more likely to provide dedicated innovation infrastructure and conduct frequent reviews of innovation portfolios to scale up AI initiatives.
Watch Agnes Koops, PwC’s Global Chief Commercial Officer, explain how the AI leaders treat innovation and how you can replicate it.
Read this next
Go deeper on AI performance insights and actions
Want ROI from AI? Go for growth.
Insights
More insights on AI
Related services
Insights
We look a decade ahead so you can create value today
Last year, we estimated there was US$7 trillion to be won through reinvention. We’ve mapped the value in motion from 2025 to 2035, so you can build a future-ready business to capture it.
Contact us
Menu