Just 3% Beat Productivity-Based Cost Targets as AI Spending Plans Grow

Only 3% of organizations surpassed their cost-savings goals through productivity improvements alone. That metric does not assess other ways companies may benefit from artificial intelligence (AI), so the figure is not a measure of AI’s overall value.

CV Viverito, a senior director analyst in Gartner’s HR practice, said, “Thirty-eight percent of companies are over budget on AI and 85% report they are planning to spend even more next year.” Those figures make spending plans a separate part of the picture from the savings measure, but do not show how much organizations will actually spend.

A separate survey of 1,865 employees conducted in the second quarter of 2026 found that 21% of time reclaimed with AI was redirected to more innovative work. The result identifies one use of freed time, but does not indicate how the rest was used.

A different survey, conducted from January through April 2026, drew 1,303 respondents from organizations with enterprise revenue of at least $50 million in fiscal 2025. It found 22% of those organizations had deployed AI broadly across more than one business unit or adopted an AI-first approach. Functional leaders in that survey planned to increase AI spending in 2026, after allocating an average 12% of departmental budgets to AI in 2025. That finding describes plans, not spending already completed. The metrics assess separate respondent groups and periods, and address cost goals, uses of freed time and future budgets rather than one combined outcome.

Anthropic generated $16.286 billion in revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2026, up from $1.163 billion a year earlier. Compute and infrastructure expenses reached $8.945 billion, or 55% of revenue. Anthropic had a $693 million operating loss and $1.618 billion in adjusted operating income, a company-defined non-GAAP measure. Revenue is business income before expenses, so it is distinct from profit. These figures describe Anthropic’s finances, not customer returns.

Crawford Del Prete, a senior adviser at PSG Equity and former president of IDC, said, “...we haven’t necessarily changed the way work is wired in an organization.” His comment is an individual observation, not a representative measure of enterprise demand or returns.