“More than half (56 percent) say their company has seen neither higher revenues nor lower costs from AI, while only one in eight (12 percent) report both of these positive impacts,” the report states.
Less than a third of CEOs said their companies achieved tangible results in the form of additional revenues from adopting AI over the past 12 months. Just about a quarter said costs have decreased following AI implementation.
Nearly a quarter reported costs have gone up after adopting AI.
The survey was conducted among 4,454 CEOs in 95 countries and territories from September to November.
When the CEOs were asked about the extent to which their organizations were deploying AI, only a “relatively small proportion” said they were applying the tech to a large or very large extent in areas such as support services or the company’s products and services.
According to the report, there is mounting evidence that isolated, tactical AI projects do not tend to deliver measurable value. Instead, it said, “tangible returns come from enterprise-scale deployment consistent with company business strategy.”
“This, in turn, demands strong AI foundations, including a technology environment that enables AI integration, a clearly defined road map for AI initiatives, formalised Responsible AI and risk processes, and an organisational culture that enables AI adoption,” the report states.
Many companies still do not have AI foundations, such as sufficient investments and clearly defined road maps for integrating the tech, according to PwC.
“Responses suggest that for most organizations, the use of AI has not yet significantly affected enterprise-wide EBIT [earnings before interest and taxes],” it states.
“Thirty-nine percent of respondents attribute any level of EBIT impact to AI, and most of those respondents say that less than 5 percent of their organization’s EBIT is attributable to AI use.”
AI Employment Challenges
The introduction of AI in workspaces presents major challenges.The “insidious effect” of such workslop is that the receiver of the content is then burdened with interpreting and redoing the work, according to the analysis.
The researchers conducted a survey of 1,150 U.S.-based full-time employees, who said they had to spend one hour and 56 minutes on average to deal with a single case of workslop.
Researchers calculated that unsatisfactory work resulted in an “invisible tax” of $186 per month per employee. For an organization with 10,000 workers, this translates to millions of dollars in lost productivity every year.
Another major challenge posed by AI is its impact on jobs.
Almost 40 percent of U.S. jobs are in occupations involving daily tasks that can be automated, such as administrative support, certain programming jobs, office roles, and paralegal work.
“AI will not make most human skills obsolete, but it will change how they are used. We estimate that more than 70 percent of today’s skills can be applied in both automatable and non-automatable work. With AI handling more common tasks, people will apply their skills in new contexts,” it said.
“Workers will spend less time preparing documents and doing basic research, for example, and more time framing questions and interpreting results. Employers may increasingly prize skills that add value to AI.”
“Multiple contacts reported exploring AI implementation primarily for productivity enhancement and potential future workforce management,” it said.
However, “more significant effects” on employment are expected in the coming years, the report said.
However, the bigger danger from artificial intelligence extends beyond the workplace, according to Hinton.
“The risk I’ve been warning about the most … is the risk that we’ll develop an AI that’s much smarter than us, and it will just take over,” he said. “It won’t need us anymore.”