Companies have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in AI. But if you ask most executives about AI right now, the conversation quickly turns to one question: Where is the return?

I hear it in nearly every conversation I have with customers. Leaders are investing in and experimenting with AI. However, when it comes time to show the impact of those investments, especially to CFOs and boards, the answer is often less clear than expected.

That’s not because AI isn’t delivering value. It’s because many organizations are still looking for value in the wrong places—and expecting it to show up too quickly. 

Across industries, I see the same pattern. Organizations default to measuring productivity and labor cost savings. When those signals are modest or slow to appear, momentum fades. Initiatives stall. What started with energy and intent gets labeled a pilot and never quite scales. 

What’s becoming clear, both in our work with customers and in our own transformation at Microsoft, is that the issue isn’t the technology. It’s how we define and measure value. 

AI’s impact rarely shows up first as efficiency. It shows up in greater insight, more predictive power, in-task skill building, and the ability to evaluate more scenarios before acting. Those gains don’t fit neatly into traditional metrics, and they don’t map cleanly into cost reduction. 

That gap is where many organizations get stuck. Leaders need to stop measuring AI activity and instead understand how AI is changing the way the business performs. Too many leaders measure the ROI of AI through the lens of cost savings. Instead, should focus on how AI can make their business better.  

Start with the outcome, not the tool

The most important question isn’t where to deploy AI. It’s what outcome matters most to your business, and whether AI........

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