McKinsey's latest State of AI report claims enterprise AI is "on the road to ROI," yet its own survey data shows the share of organisations reporting a real earnings boost from AI has barely moved in a year. This matters because it confirms a persistent gap between soaring corporate investment and enthusiasm for AI, and the actual financial returns businesses can point to, even as firms continue pouring money into the technology and increasingly expect it to cut jobs.

The survey of 1,719 professionals found 37% attribute at least some earnings impact to AI, roughly unchanged from 2025, while only 6% qualify as "high performers" attributing 5% or more of earnings to AI with significant impact, also flat year-on-year. Adoption is still climbing regardless: 40% of large firms are scaling AI agents (up from 27%), a third are building coding tools in-house rather than buying software, and 80% of individual users report productivity gains, though a fifth cite rising AI costs as a constraint. On jobs, 39% of respondents now expect AI-driven cuts in the coming year, up from 32% in 2025, though McKinsey notes last year's predicted job losses failed to materialise to the extent expected.