When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI), the burning question for enterprises is how to achieve a return on investment (ROI) – and fast.
Amid soaring expectations and reports on the high failure rate for generative AI pilots, leaders are under pressure to deliver real results.
Growing momentum
Despite this, there are fresh signs momentum is building. In a recent IBM and Censuswide survey of 3,500 senior leaders in 10 countries across Europe and the Middle East, two-thirds said their organization has seen significant productivity gains from using AI. One in five said they’ve already achieved a return on investment across different measures, and a further 41% expect to reach that milestone within a year.
These gains are showing up in familiar places—streamlining operations, speeding up innovation, and improving decision-making. But the most exciting shift is strategic. Nearly a quarter of respondents said AI is reshaping their business models, not just automating tasks but rethinking how value is created from the ground up.
This progress is encouraging. Yet it’s still early days in the AI adoption journey, with plenty of thorny challenges to overcome. Chief among them, according to our survey, is concerns about privacy, security and ethics (68%). A similar proportion noted IT complexity and integration with legacy systems is a major obstacle.
The Rise of agents
These challenges are already being amplified by the shift into the era of agentic AI, where companies will have thousands of AI agents handling tasks and entire processes autonomously. Expectations for this evolution are sky high: 92% of respondents to our survey believe AI agents will deliver ROI within the next two years.
This optimism is grounded in reality. Take sales for example. Instead of sales teams manually preparing personalised briefing documents for client meetings, AI agents can pull the latest news about the client’s industry, summarize past interactions from CRM systems, and suggest tailored talking points based on the client’s business goals. What used to take an hour now takes minutes, freeing sales reps up to focus on relationship-building and closing deals.
Imagine the impact of this multiplied across a business, with specialized agents for HR, procurement and all other functions. The true power of AI agents is unlocked when they work in concert, sharing information and tackling complex, multi-step processes together.
Orchestrating success
The keys to realizing that potential are orchestration and governance. Organizations will need to orchestrate AI agents seamlessly across their entire tech ecosystem—regardless of vendor, platform, or infrastructure, to be successful. This is best facilitated by open-source agents and hybrid cloud platforms that allow companies to use whatever agents they need, wherever they need them.
We can already see early signs of this playing out in Europe. A recent example is the French catering multinational, Elior Group, which is partnering with IBM Consulting to create an “Agentic AI & Data Factory” that orchestrates AI agents across countries and business units.
But while more autonomous agents can boost productivity, they also introduce new risks. Organisations will need robust enterprise grade security and AI governance capabilities that give them full visibility and control over what agents are doing. This will help to manage performance as well as risks such as unwanted bias, inaccuracy and security vulnerabilities.
The long game
AI for business is not a magic bullet; it’s a long-term play. To find real value, enterprises must embed AI into where work gets done, managing a myriad of risks and complexity along the way.
At IBM, we’ve seen first-hand what’s possible. After deploying more than 50 AI use cases across functions like HR, IT, finance, customer support, supply chain, and marketing, we are on track to deliver $4.5 billion in productivity gains by the end of 2025.
For businesses seeking real returns from AI, the lesson is clear: by focusing on the use cases that will add the most value and building the capabilities to orchestrate and govern game-changing agentic AI systems, the returns will follow.
Dave McCann
Dave McCann is the Managing Partner for IBM Consulting in EMEA. He and his team help EMEA organisations use innovative technology to co-create the future of their businesses in the era of AI.
