McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group surveys link stronger reported AI results with distinct management practices, finding extensive workflow redesign among high performers and financial measurement in BCG’s top company tier.
The studies use different definitions of success. BCG grouped companies by AI value and maturity, McKinsey by reported earnings contribution, and Gartner by how widely organizations had deployed AI.
BCG’s 2026 Applied AI Index drew on responses from 1,330 CxOs and senior leaders. It placed 7.5% of companies in its “future-built” category for significant AI value and another 41% in a group that was scaling AI and generating some value. Together, the categories represented nearly half of the companies surveyed. Among future-built companies, 95% used defined performance measures or monitored AI’s contribution through profit-and-loss measures.
McKinsey’s survey, conducted May 4 to June 8, 2026, included 1,719 participants in 97 countries. It classified 6% of respondents as AI high performers, requiring them to report significant value and attribute at least 5% of earnings before interest and taxes to AI. Nearly three-quarters of that group said their organizations had fundamentally redesigned workflows, compared with one-quarter of other respondents.
Gartner measured deployment rather than financial results. Its survey of 1,303 respondents at organizations with at least $50 million in fiscal 2025 revenue found that 22% had expanded AI across several business units or adopted an AI-first approach.
In a sponsored interview published by Business Reporter, Mindstone CEO Joshua Wöhle said fewer than 5% of organizations were “really getting value” from AI. Business Reporter attributed the estimate to Mindstone’s experience training teams at Fortune 500 companies, but the article gave no sample size or definition of value.
BCG’s findings also point to potential gains for companies and costs for workers. Revenue growth among its future-built companies was 2.4 times the laggard level, while their EBITDA growth was 2.8 times as high. Companies surveyed expected AI-related workforce reductions of roughly 10% to 15% by 2030; about seven in 10 companies in BCG’s future-built and scaling groups said they were retraining staff.
Gartner said 85% of functional leaders planned to increase AI spending in 2026. Their departments had allocated an average of 12% of budgets to AI in 2025.
