The expectation that AI-powered capabilities for customer and employee experiences will have positive impact on business success is widespread, and evidence is mounting to warrant such belief. Metrigy’s AI for Business Success 2025-26 global research study with 1,104 companies is chock-full of it.
The high rate of adoption is the starting point. Nearly every company in the study uses AI in some capacity, with the greatest portion—53.6%—doing so extensively across all or most of their business units. Of course, companies shouldn’t be approaching AI in willy-nilly fashion, but many of their CX and workplace collaboration vendors will have made adoption relatively seamless with built-in functionality at times available at no additional cost.
For many companies, the potential gains from tapping into AI are simply too compelling to ignore. More than half of the companies using AI report improved customer satisfaction (CSAT) ratings (69.9%), reduced costs (53.5%), improved employee productivity (59.6%), and increased sales (57.2%). The improvements can be exceptional, as we’ve seen from this study’s Research Success Group:
- Revenue growth of more than 26.6%
- Cost reduction of more than 20.1%
- Greater than a 32.2% boost in CSAT
- Efficiency improvement of more than 29.4%
- Reduction in after-call work by 24%
Besides these positive shifts in business metrics, companies in the Research Success Group all also have already proven return on investment (ROI) for AI.
ROI, in fact, has been attainable for most companies in general: 54.2% of companies in this study said they’ve seen a return on their AI investment. The bulk of the others are split between expecting an ROI within the next 12 months or sometime after this year. Only a small percentage, 8.5%, said the don’t expect the benefit of AI to outweigh their spending or aren’t sure about ROI yet.
Our research shows a success correlation for looking to obtain ROI within six months. Clearly, the Research Success Group has little tolerance for prolonged time to ROI, while the non-success group and most of all other companies are willing to wait anywhere from six months to more than two years. Compressed ROI expectations could signal a willingness among companies to swap out one AI product, such as an AI text or voice agent, for another should it not deliver value quickly enough.
From a cost-savings perspective, the largest percentages of companies see AI leading to reduced spending on consultants and other partners (45.6%) and reduced employee expenses through attrition (42.5%). For the latter, the savings comes in not have to replace those who have left. Thirty percent or more of companies also tallied savings due to reduced employee expenses associated with layoffs, elimination of office expenses/rent, lowered compensation, and decreased technology spending.
Overall, more than two-thirds of all companies and 83.2% of the Research Success Group said AI is already bringing their company significant value. The top values to date? Assisting humans to be more productive, followed by the ability to fully automate functions, and providing insights/analytics. More to come, no doubt.
