Something isn’t adding up.

Every boardroom conversation tells us AI is an imperative.
Every earnings call suggests transformation is underway and that AI is central to the future story.
Every CEO survey insists this technology will reshape value creation.

Still…

More than half of CEOs now admit they’ve seen no meaningful financial benefit from AI so far (according to a recent Global CEO Survey by PwC).
So far… no real cost savings.
No clear revenue lift… no measurable advantage for most.
Don’t let that headline scare you… there’s much more happening beneath the surface.
Which brings me to the conclusion that it’s not a failure of business, but rather a current failure of translation.

Because here’s the paradox hiding in plain sight…

The same leaders who say AI isn’t paying off… also say not moving fast enough feels even riskier.
So they keep spending.
They keep experimenting… they keep announcing pilots.
Not because the returns are obvious…
But because (at this point) the fear of being left behind is louder than the current evidence in front of them.
This isn’t skepticism… it’s anxiety.
AI isn’t struggling because the models don’t work.
The issue is that most organizations haven’t changed the conditions around them enough to truly reap the rewards.

It’s a work in progress… and it won’t move as fast as the public market’s hype or desire for that to happen.

You don’t get scaled returns from “using AI.”
You get returns when intelligence is embedded into decisions, workflows, products and customer-facing experiences that actually change behavior.
Right now, for most companies, AI lives in side pockets:
A productivity tool here.
A chatbot there.
A pilot running over there.

That’s not transformation… that’s experimentation.

And, for the record, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Everyone talks about AI like it’s a simple plug n’ play.
Something you buy, deploy… and poof… here’s some incredible ROI.
But AI behaves more like electricity did in the early days.
The power mattered… but the real gains came when factories were redesigned around it.

Until then, it looked disappointing on paper.

And that’s where it feels like we are… again.
Most companies are buying tools before building foundations.
So costs go up.
Complexity increases.
Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters of CEOs still expect AI to boost profitability soon (according to that same survey).

That optimism isn’t irrational… it’s deferred.

They’re betting that once the foundations get implemented and caught up, the leverage will appear fast… and brutally separate leaders from laggards.
Which brings us to the real question CEOs should be asking:
Not “Is AI working?”
But “What work are we redesigning because AI exists?”

AI doesn’t create advantage because you bought it.

It creates advantage when you change how decisions are made, how value is delivered and what customers will actually pay more for.
That’s why this moment feels familiar to me.
We’ve been here before…
“Why do we need a website?”
“Who would ever buy something online?”
“This internet thing doesn’t fit our business model.”

The technology wasn’t wrong… the timing of understanding was.

AI isn’t failing CEOs or enterprises.
Most are still deciding whether they’re willing to let it matter.
And the gap between those who redesign for intelligence and those who just rent AI services is about to widen fast.
The real risk isn’t that AI won’t pay off.
It’s that by the time it does… the advantage may already belong to someone else.

And maybe the truth beneath all this spending is that FOMO isn’t the strategy… it’s the signal.

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

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