Nearly 4 in 5 of the companies diving headlong into generative AI are seeing a positive return on their investment, according to results of a new ServiceNow study, shared first with Axios. Businesses are under tremendous pressure to demonstrate they aren’t missing out on the AI revolution, but many companies have struggled to go from experiments into full-scale use of the technology. In its inaugural AI Maturity Index, ServiceNow surveyed nearly 4,500 respondents from 21 countries and found that most companies are still in the early stages of adopting generative AI. The study assigned maturity scores between 1 and 100. The average score was 44 and the highest score was just 71. Only about 1 in 6 companies scored higher than 50.
Companies, on average, are spending about 9% of revenue on technology, with 15% of that going to AI. Looking ahead, 81% of companies say they plan to increase AI spending next year, with a quarter of companies planning to boost spending between 10% and 14% and a similar number planning to increase spending between 5% and 9%. What separated the companies ServiceNow identified as “pacesetters” was that they are looking not only at the technology options, but also at how to redefine how they do business, even if they aren’t there yet. “There is no substitute for leadership,” ServiceNow chief customer officer Chris Bedi told Axios. “You have to be able to get up in front of your team and say, ‘Here’s how your roles are going to evolve in an AI-first world.'”

Full study : Most businesses are still in “early stages” with generative AI.