Only 48% of companies are spreading artificial intelligence's value across multiple business units, research by IDC commissioned by Microsoft found, in findings the technology company published on Nov. 12.
That compares with 66% of leaders reporting results from AI, IDC found. Microsoft, which sells AI software and cloud services, published the findings in “Scaling AI value without losing control: Lessons from Frontier Firms.”
The research drew on a July survey of 5,204 senior information technology and business leaders across 28 industries, according to IDC's survey reference. It examined how organizations expand the benefits of AI across their businesses.
Organizations use AI in an average of 6.5 business areas, with IT infrastructure, cybersecurity and customer service leading adoption, IDC found. Industry-specific applications showed the fastest growth, while 36% of organizations were still testing agents, software that carries out tasks.
The strongest performers were organizations in the top 10% of IDC's AI maturity scale, a group it calls Frontier Firms. IDC assesses spending practices, breadth of use, agent adoption, skills, confidence in managing AI risks and results.
Those organizations reported returns of 3.8 times their investment in agents, compared with 3 times for slow adopters, IDC found. Leaders reported the returns themselves, and the research established an association rather than showing that the practices caused higher returns.
“Organizations that scale AI value aren’t simply spending more,” said Kathy Lange, IDC's research director for AI, data and automation software. She said they manage investments, models, agents, governance and skills together to produce results they can repeat across their businesses.
Skills represented the widest gap, with workforce confidence outpacing plans to support employees, the research found. Alysa Taylor, Microsoft's chief marketing officer for commercial cloud and AI, said organizations need company-wide plans to help people build AI skills.
Trust, security, advanced technology and model performance also shaped purchasing decisions. IDC found that 44% of leaders selected each of three priorities: trust and security, advanced technology, and model performance.
Most leaders reported high trust in their AI systems, but fewer expressed high confidence in handling security and governance risks, IDC found. Taylor said oversight must cover what agents decide and do as they take on more work.
Leaders identified creativity, innovation and business reinvention as opportunities created by agents, at 41%, IDC found. Customer-facing work and relationships, and analytical work and data interpretation, each drew 39%.
IDC found that 71% of organizations expected their AI budgets to rise at least 10% over the next 12 months. Taylor said companies should connect spending and performance measurements to business results and compare processes before and after introducing AI.
She said companies should redesign work around agents, establish rules and measure results, while investing in employees' skills. Microsoft said the full IDC InfoBrief would follow the published findings.
