Gartner survey finds 44 per cent of CEOs struggle to show financial returns from AI

Almost half of business chiefs around the world cannot show clear financial returns from their artificial intelligence investments, according to research released by technology research company Gartner on 20 October 2026.

The findings, drawn from Gartner's 2027 CEO Survey of 203 global chief executives and senior leaders conducted earlier this year, show that 44 per cent of bosses struggle to prove to stakeholders that AI is generating tangible financial gains. Even so, companies are not walking away from the technology. Three in four respondents plan to increase their spending on tech, and 62 per cent rank revenue growth as their highest business priority.

Gartner analyst David Furlonger explained at the IT Symposium in Florida that simply tacking AI tools onto old ways of working will not solve the issue. Instead of treating AI as an add-on, Furlonger argued that organisations need to rethink how they operate, deliver services and build value if they want those investments to produce measurable business benefits.

The research also points to a shift in how top leaders view tech. Eight in ten respondents said technology has effectively become their core business strategy. At the same time, leaders face pressure on several fronts: 93 per cent expect economic volatility to hit their strategic goals through 2027, and 77 per cent expect substantial pressure from broader AI adoption across their industries.

What this means for Australian businesses

For Australian small and medium enterprise owners, these findings offer a timely sanity check. If you have introduced chatbots, automated workflows or generative writing tools and are struggling to spot the dollar savings on your profit and loss sheet, you are not alone.

Here are practical ways to get real value from your AI spending:

• Stop tacking AI onto broken steps. Adding automated tools to an inefficient process only creates faster mistakes. Map out where your team loses the most time, fix the friction first, and then apply automation.
• Tie every AI pilot to an explicit operational metric. Rather than testing software to see what happens, set clear baseline measurements before you buy, such as cutting invoice turnaround from three days to four hours or reducing customer response times.
• Focus on operational changes rather than software licences. True gains come when your team changes how they deliver their core service. Train staff to hand off routine administration to software so they can take on more billable work or manage more client accounts.