Boston Consulting Group (BCG) classified 48.5% of companies as generating some or significant value from artificial intelligence, while finding a gap between plans for AI agents and the safeguards firms currently report.
The Applied AI Index 2026 surveyed 1,330 C-suite executives and senior leaders across more than 20 sectors. BCG placed 7.5% of companies in its “future-built” group, which it associated with significant value, and 41% in the “scaling” group, associated with some value. Together, the groups represented 48.5% of the companies surveyed.
The index found that 42% of companies expect to give agents decision-making authority by 2030. At survey time, 5% had all six controls BCG tracks. Jeff Walters, a BCG managing director and senior partner and report co-author, said in a press release that “very few have the controls to do so safely.”
BCG estimates agentic AI accounted for 22% of total AI value in its 2026 sample and forecasts that share will reach 39% by 2030. The firm put AI spending at 3.3% of revenue, compared with about 1.7% in late 2025. More than 80% of the spending was outside enterprise IT budgets.
BCG also said companies in its “future-built” group reported 2.4 times the top-line growth of those in the bottom half of the 2026 sample. Its 2025 research identified a recurring obstacle: organizations treated AI as a technology rollout instead of integrating it into employees’ workflows.
In an Oct. 30 commentary for Gulf News, Presight CEO Thomas Pramotedham argued that companies should judge AI by its outcomes. He also emphasized data integration, system foundations, human oversight and sovereignty as priorities as AI systems take on more work.
A Dec. 8, 2025, BCG report said 60% of companies globally were not generating material value from AI. The underlying responses were self-reported and sometimes reflected only the business area respondents knew best, rather than the whole company. That study surveyed 1,250 executives, so the two BCG reports are separate snapshots and do not track change among the same companies.
