With the economy’s future growing cloudier, large companies are compensating by stepping up their investments in artificial intelligence, according to a new report from KPMG. And they’re counting on quick results.
Among 100 C-suite executives participating in the firm’s quarterly Pulse survey — all at companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue — a majority (56%) said they believe AI will fundamentally change the nature of their business within one year. Two-thirds said that it will take place within two years.
Particularly keen on generative AI, two-thirds (68%) of the executives said they would invest between $50 million and $250 million in that category over the next 12 months. That was up sharply from 45% a year ago in KPMG’s first-quarter 2024 Pulse report.
In a landslide result highlighting a growing sense of urgency, 88% of those polled cited macroeconomic conditions as the top concern influencing AI strategies.
Increasing employees’ adoption of AI tools is a fast-emerging step toward attaining companies’ AI goals. An eye-opening 81% of the executives said they’re planning to include generative AI as part of their performance development track and in performance reviews, although only 19% are already doing so.
And only about a quarter (24%) of the survey participants are leveraging AI embedded into existing workflows at least weekly. To the extent that it becomes more common, it hopefully would “help increase adoption by eliminating the need for employees to proactively access AI tools outside their current way of working,” KPMG said.
In fact, though, companies are investing more in hiring new talent and purchasing technology than on training their existing workforce, according to KPMG. And, counter to “traditional bottom-up technology adoption patterns,” leaders appearing to be use generative AI more than middle- to entry-level employees.
Half of the leaders said they’re currently scaling their generative AI technology, a leap from the 10% who said so just six months ago. On the other hand, less than a third (31%) said they expect to be able to measure the return on generative AI investments within the next six months.
“The dynamic nature of AI demands new ways to measure value,” said Steve Chase, vice chair of AI and Digital Innovation for KPMG. “As leaders work to define the right metrics, those measures must be tightly aligned with business strategy and should account for the cost of not investing.”
Another theme in 2025 is increased usage of AI agents, or software with a degree of independent decision-making autonomy. While currently only 12% of the executives said their companies have deployed such tools for use across their organizations, 37% are piloting agents and the rest are exploring their use.
More than half of the respondents said they expect to use AI agent capabilities this year in the areas of administrative duties, call center tasks, and developing new business materials.
“Leaders are putting real dollars behind agents, but with mounting pressure to demonstrate AI, getting the value story right is critical,” Case said.
