Business value out of AI investment

The promise of AI is increased productivity: fewer clicks, fewer meetings, fewer manual tasks. AI saves employees time — but that time is often lost to task switching, coordination overhead, or simply… longer coffee breaks.

Productivity gains alone don’t create business value unless they’re intentionally redirected toward activities that truly move the needle.

Here’s why most organizations struggle to extract real business value from AI investments:

According to Gartner, 80% of AI investments today are in what they call Defend Solutions — tools like copilots and ChatGPT. Software vendors are raising prices by up to 30% as they embed generative AI features. These are mostly micro-innovations that promote employee autonomy, performance, career growth, and increase intent to stay.

If that was the goal, great! But if the business case was built on revenue growth or cost reduction — the two main drivers of business value — then something is missing.

To unlock real value, AI must be seen not just as a tool to do things faster, but as a lever to do the right things better. The real impact happens when AI is strategically tied to business outcomes — and that means shifting focus from internal efficiency to metrics like:

• Total units sold

• Revenue growth

• Market share increase

• Sales efficiency ratio

• Sales conversion rate

• Customer acquisition rate

Is your AI investment just making teams faster — or is it moving the business forward?

It’s time to move beyond FTE reduction and start thinking about skill and task recalibration to truly boost your competitive edge.