AI isn’t the strategy. The business bottleneck is.

The distinction matters. McKinsey’s 2026 global survey found that 80% of respondents said AI improved their individual productivity, but only 37% reported a positive impact on their organisation’s EBIT. Adoption is growing faster than measurable financial impact.1

The problem may not be the technology. It may be the question businesses ask before adopting it.

Start with the right question

When leaders begin with “Where can we use AI?”, almost any task becomes a potential use case. But not every task deserves investment, and making a low-value process faster doesn’t necessarily make the business better.

A more useful starting point is to identify where the business is losing value.

• Is the sales team spending too much time qualifying leads?
• Are customers waiting too long for answers?
• Are decisions delayed because information is scattered across systems?
• Is a costly manual process limiting growth?

These are business problems. AI is one possible response, not the strategy itself.

Define success before you invest

Before investing, leaders need to define what success looks like: lower costs, faster decisions, better customer experiences or new revenue. They also need a baseline to measure whether the change actually delivers.

Sometimes AI will be the right solution. Sometimes the real issue will be a broken process, poor data or unclear ownership.

Invest with intent

The point is not to adopt less AI. It is to invest with greater intent.

The competitive advantage won’t come from using AI everywhere. It will come from knowing where it can make a meaningful difference.

Notes

1. McKinsey, The state of AI, global survey, 2026. Back