Nearly half of companies are now generating value from AI: BCG

Nearly 50% of companies are now generating meaningful business value from AI, marking a shift from the limited returns seen during the early stages of enterprise adoption, according to new research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The Applied AI Index 2026, based on a survey of 1,330 C-suite executives and senior leaders, found that 7.5% of companies classified as “future-built” and a further 41% that are actively scaling AI are outperforming their peers.

BCG’s 2025 research had found that only 5% of companies were generating substantial value from AI.

The latest findings suggest that AI value is becoming more widespread, although a significant gap remains between companies that are scaling successfully and those struggling to turn investment into impact.

AI spending doubles in less than a year

Corporate AI spending has also risen sharply, increasing from around 1.7% of revenue in late 2025 to 3.3% in 2026.

More than 80% of AI spending now sits outside enterprise IT budgets, suggesting that AI investment is increasingly being driven by business functions rather than treated solely as a technology initiative.

“AI spending has doubled in less than a year, and much of it no longer sits in the enterprise IT budget,” said Michael Grebe, managing director and senior partner at BCG and a coauthor of the report.

BCG said companies that continue to treat AI primarily as an IT cost may underestimate both the scale of investment and its potential business impact.

Governance is becoming the bigger challenge

As companies move towards more autonomous AI systems, the research points to a growing gap between deployment and governance.

By 2030, 42% of companies expect to give AI agents genuine decision-making authority. Yet only 5% currently have the full set of controls BCG says are needed to deploy such systems safely.

These controls include clear human oversight, rollback mechanisms, security and audit measures, as well as cost guardrails.

BCG estimates that agentic AI could account for around 40% of total AI value by 2030, making governance a growing business priority as organisations give AI systems greater autonomy.

AI could reshape middle management

The workforce impact is also expected to extend beyond straightforward job cuts.

Companies surveyed expect their workforces to decline by roughly 10% to 15% by 2030, with BCG pointing to the potential thinning of coordination and middle-management layers.

At the same time, dedicated AI roles are expected to increase from 7% of the workforce in 2026 to 22% by 2030.

Reskilling is also emerging as a key part of the transition. Seven in 10 future-built and scaling companies are already retraining employees, according to the research.

Amanda Luther, managing director and senior partner at BCG and a coauthor of the report, said AI is reshaping rather than simply shrinking the workforce, with the impact expected to fall more heavily on middle management than on senior or functional experts.

What separates companies capturing value

BCG said companies that are pulling ahead tend to treat AI as an enterprise-wide transformation rather than a collection of individual technology projects.

These organisations focus on identifying where AI can create business value, redesign workflows end-to-end, invest in governance and workforce capabilities alongside technology, and measure the impact directly through business and financial outcomes.

The findings point to a shift in the enterprise AI conversation: as more organisations move beyond pilots and experimentation, the challenge is increasingly about scaling AI responsibly, redesigning work and building the capabilities needed to capture its value.