‘A striking finding this year is the gap between individual gains and enterprise impact’: McKinsey says AI is finally paying off for enterprises – but rising costs and ‘constrained’ efficiency boosts are still a major hurdle

New research from McKinsey suggests enterprises are finally reporting benefits from AI, but cost-related concerns and “constrained” productivity gains still weigh heavy on the minds of IT leaders.

Figures from the consultancy’s State of AI in 2026 report show more than one-third (37%) of respondents recorded “some” earnings impact with the technology, although that marks the same share from last year’s report.

Meanwhile, “AI high performers” said AI is now having a “significant” impact on operational efficiency and earnings.

The report suggests that enterprise AI maturity is rising, with an increasing number of enterprises now successfully scaling the technology. Improvements in this regard are being reported across the board, McKinsey noted, with respondents scaling chatbots, coding agents, and more sophisticated AI agents.

The use of agentic AI has increased significantly, for example, with 40% of large enterprises scaling agents, up from 27% last year. Meanwhile, around two-in-ten are actively scaling software coding agents.

“Among AI tools, chatbots are the most widely scaled, with 47 percent of respondents saying their organizations are scaling them across the enterprise,” the report states.

“About two-in-ten respondents report reaching the scaling phase across their organization with AI agents and a similar share report the same with software coding agents.”

Mismatched AI productivity

Workforce productivity gains rank among the most notable improvements for enterprises, according to McKinsey.

Around 80% of respondents said that AI has improved individual productivity, while 50% report that AI helps them “make better decisions”. Crucially, however, McKinsey warned that “the experience is not universally positive”.

Mid-level managers and individual workers are more likely than executives to report AI-related problems. McKinsey said this shows that AI impact “remains concentrated” among certain groups within the enterprise.

This is by no means the first study to highlight this trend. Research from Accenture in April this year found many enterprises are dealing with mismatched AI productivity gains.

Similar to McKinsey, the report found that workers are reporting benefits with the technology such as higher-quality output levels and faster project delivery times.

Yet the report pointed to a “widening gap” between the basic use of the technology and its wider enterprise impact. A key factor, Accenture said, lies in the fact that organizations' process changes are “lagging behind” integration rates.

Similarly, many AI strategies typically fail to modernize underlying IT infrastructure or workflows to accommodate the technology.

“A striking finding this year is the gap between individual gains and enterprise impact. At the individual level, AI is clearly a boon: 80 percent of survey respondents say it has improved their productivity and half say it helps them make better decisions,” said Dan Tinkoff, senior partner at McKinsey.

“Yet, only 37 percent of organizations report any positive EBIT contribution, essentially flat compared with last year.”

AI costs are taking the shine off enterprise gains

Cost-related concerns continue to weigh heavy on IT leaders’ minds, according to McKinsey. Around 20% of respondents said that AI-related operating costs have “constrained their AI use”.

“Those cost constraints are being reported across the full range of AI tools. For each of three tools – AI chatbots, AI agents, and software coding agents – about one-in-ten respondents say their organizations’ use has been constrained by costs,” the report states.

McKinsey also highlighted token-related cost concerns. This has become a recurring pain point for some businesses over the last year as firms ramp up adoption of the technology.

The ‘tokenmaxxing’ trend, for example, has prompted a surge in usage and landed some firms with hefty bills.

As ITPro previously reported, Accenture asked workers to stop using AI for basic tasks amidst skyrocketing costs while Uber revealed it blew through its entire annual AI budget in just four months.

Rising operational costs haven’t dampened investment rates, however. More than one-quarter (28%) of respondents said their organisation is now spending more than 10% of their total IT budget on AI tools.

“Looking ahead, 60 percent of respondents expect their organizations to increase their AI investments over the next year,” McKinsey noted.

“Respondents in pharmaceuticals and medical products, insurance, and banking and other financial institutions are the most likely to expect increasing investment.”

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