Saad Ullah
⬤ Recent survey data from Apollo Global Management shows artificial intelligence hasn't delivered the promised benefits for most businesses over the past year. The results reveal that companies are still struggling to turn their AI investments into real improvements across key operations, despite all the hype around AI-driven efficiency.
⬤ The data, pulled from CFO surveys by the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta, paints a pretty clear picture: between 62% and 81% of firms reported either no change or weren't sure if AI made any difference over the last 12 months. This held true across the board—labor productivity, customer satisfaction, decision-making speed, and time spent on valuable tasks all showed minimal impact. Customer-related metrics had the highest "no change" responses, while productivity and decision-making weren't much better.
⬤ Only about 7% to 10% of firms saw meaningful improvements—gains over 5% in any category. A few more reported modest bumps between 1% and 5%, but these numbers were still way below the share seeing zero effect. Interestingly, almost no firms reported declines from AI adoption, with very few experiencing drops over 1%. So while there's limited downside, there's also limited upside so far.
⬤ The takeaway? AI benefits are concentrated among a small group of companies that have the right use cases and know how to implement it properly. While AI remains a hot topic in corporate boardrooms, the survey makes it clear that widespread productivity gains just aren't happening yet across the broader business world. The gap between investment hype and actual results suggests we're still in the very early innings of the AI productivity cycle.
Saad Ullah
