MIT study finds 95% of AI projects deliver no ROI despite billions spent

Srinagar, Sept 01: As companies worldwide race to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) to cut costs and drive growth, a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reveals that most of these efforts are falling flat.

According to the report titled The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025, 95% of organizations implementing AI systems are seeing no return on their investments, despite an estimated $30–40 billion poured into generative AI by enterprises.

“Despite massive investment into GenAI, this report uncovers a surprising result — that 95% of organizations are getting zero return,” the study noted.

The study involved surveying 300 AI deployments while the researchers spoke to approximately 350 employees. AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot are some of the most adopted models, but only five per cent of integrated AI pilots are extracting millions in value, while the vast majority remain stuck with no measurable profit and loss (P&L) impact.

"Over 80 per cent of organisations have explored or piloted them, and nearly 40 per cent report deployment. But these tools primarily enhance individual productivity, not P&L performance. Meanwhile, enterprise-grade systems, custom or vendor-sold, are being quietly rejected," the report stated.

In June, Apple released a study challenging the perceived intelligence of modern AI systems. Titled The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity, the research argues that popular reasoning models — including Claude, DeepSeek-R1, and o3-mini — do not actually engage in real reasoning as widely believed.