Wharton report: 67% see strong AI ROI with full integration

The 2026 report marks the fourth year of the Wharton and GBK Collective study, which began as an inaugural study led by GBK alongside Wharton Professor Stefano Puntoni in 2023 and became a joint study in 2024. Across its waves, the research traces a shift from early-adopter exploration in 2023–24 to formal experimentation, then to 2025's accountable acceleration in which regular usage became integrated into core operations and leaders embedded ROI metrics. The 2026 edition describes a move from accountable acceleration to performance at scale: adoption is no longer the question, but substantial returns remain uneven.

Sonny Tambe, Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School and Faculty Co-Director of Wharton Human-AI Research, said companies believe AI will transform their industries but many still ask it to prove itself by saving time, while those seeing stronger returns redesign workflows and measure AI against outcomes that matter to growth. Jeremy Korst of Mindspan Labs and a Wharton lecturer said the advantage comes from what an organization can do with AI, requiring clear ownership and aligned leadership. Brian Smith of GBK Collective noted two-thirds of departments say they use AI agents, yet only 17% let an agent complete a task without a person approving each step, leaving most companies in a supervised middle where returns are weakest.