AI doesn’t have an ROI problem. It has a value management problem.

Sept 1, 2026

AI doesn’t have an ROI problem. It has a value management problem.

 

Gartner’s latest research should make executives’ pay attention.

Only 22% of organisations have successfully scaled AI across multiple business units or adopted an AI-first approach, yet 85% of functional leaders expect AI spending to increase in 2026. That gap is interesting. But what really caught my attention was the behaviour of the organisations achieving the strongest returns.

They are not simply measuring AI ROI at the end of a project. They are continuously tracking returns, treating AI initiatives as a portfolio of value, reassessing performance, reallocating investment and stopping initiatives that are not delivering.

Those organisations reported positive returns from 81% of their AI initiatives.
That feels like a much bigger shift than simply “getting better at ROI”.

For decades, enterprises have been very good at governing investment approval. We create the business case, secure the budget, launch the programme, implement the technology and reach go-live.

What we are often much less good at is governing what happens afterwards.

Did the value actually materialise? Is it still being realised? What is preventing it? What should we change? Should we invest more? Should we stop?

AI is making this weakness more visible because investment is accelerating faster than many organisations’ ability to prove the resulting enterprise value. But I don’t think this is fundamentally an AI problem.

The same issue exists across ERP transformation, automation, digital adoption, process improvement, cloud programmes and major technology investments more broadly.

It raises a much bigger question:

Do enterprises now need to manage value as continuously and systematically as they manage cost, risk and performance?

I believe they do.

At DAA, we’re increasingly thinking about this as Enterprise Value Management.

Not another ROI methodology or another dashboard. A management discipline that connects investment to adoption, behaviour, operational performance, business outcomes and financial value, and then creates the governance loop needed to measure, assure, intervene, reallocate, and sustain that value.

Gartner’s research feels like another important signal that the market is moving in this direction. Perhaps the next evolution isn’t simply better AI governance, it’s better value governance.

Perhaps the next evolution isn’t simply better AI governance, it’s better value governance.