A lot of businesses are looking at their AI projects right now and quietly wondering why if AI is so powerful, the profit numbers aren’t moving?
We've had a front row seat to this with our clients, and the pattern is always the same... individuals are getting radically more productive and efficient, but the company/organisation isn’t yet capturing that in the profit lines of the P&L.
This week I pulled together what I’m seeing on the ground with some sharp insights from Conor Grennan and Azeem Azhar, plus new McKinsey data that finally gives us a clearer picture (I link to all 3 of those, below).
Once you see the stages that every general purpose technology goes through, the current AI/ROI numbers stop being confusing and start being predictable.
It turns out we’re not in an AI profit problem, we’re in an organisational redesign challenge.
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Azeem Azhar's essay: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/the-ai-productivity-paradox
McKinsey State of AI 2025 Report: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai
Conor Grennan's LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/conorgrennan_everyones-panicking-about-ai-roi-but-this-activity-7396199096375717890-ps5A/