Enterprise spending on generative AI has surged over the past year, but for many CIOs, the hardest conversations are only now beginning. Boards and CFOs are no longer asking whether the organization is investing in AI. They are asking what it’s getting back — in measurable financial terms.
According to analysts at Forrester Research, genAI budgets have increased substantially year over year, yet a majority of organizations still struggle to demonstrate sustained return on investment. Early pilots often look promising, but value becomes harder to explain as systems scale, costs fluctuate, and governance expectations rise.
Interviews with analysts, CIOs, and AI platform and governance leaders point to a consistent pattern. The problem is not that AI fails technically. It’s that enterprises are applying legacy budgeting, operating, and accountability models to a technology whose economics behave very differently. As a result, ROI erodes not because AI stops working, but because organizations lose the ability to explain, defend, and prioritize it.
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