A new McKinsey Global Survey on AI reveals that organizations are making structural changes to generate value from generative AI, with large companies leading the transformation. The comprehensive survey gathered insights from 1,491 participants across 101 nations.

According to the report titled "The state of AI: How organizations are rewiring to capture value," 78% of respondents say their organizations now use AI in at least one business function, up from 72% in early 2024 and 55% a year earlier. Similarly, 71% report regular use of generative AI, compared to 65% in early 2024.

The survey identifies key organizational changes that correlate with higher bottom-line impact from AI implementation. CEO oversight of AI governance emerged as particularly significant, especially at larger companies where it has the most impact on EBIT attributable to generative AI. Twenty-eight percent of respondents whose organizations use AI report that their CEO is responsible for overseeing AI governance.

Another critical factor is workflow redesign, which shows the strongest correlation with EBIT impact from generative AI use. Currently, 21% of respondents reporting generative AI use say their organizations have fundamentally redesigned at least some workflows as a result.

Survey responses show that organizations are most often using gen AI in marketing and sales, product and service development, service operations, and software engineering.

"The organizations that are building a genuine and lasting competitive advantage from their AI efforts are the ones that are thinking in terms of wholesale transformative change that stands to alter their business models, cost structures, and revenue streams - rather than proceeding incrementally," notes Alex Singla, Senior Partner and Global Coleader of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey.

The survey also reveals that companies are increasingly mitigating generative AI-related risks, with larger organizations leading risk management efforts, particularly in cybersecurity and privacy domains.

While AI adoption is accelerating, most organizations are still in early implementation stages. Less than one-third of respondents report that their organizations are following best practices for AI adoption and scaling, such as tracking well-defined KPIs for generative AI solutions.

Regarding workforce impact, respondents most often report that employees are spending time saved via automation on entirely new activities. A plurality (38%) predict that generative AI will have little effect on the size of their organization's workforce in the next three years, though expectations vary by industry and function.

Organizations have employees overseeing the quality of gen AI outputs, though the extent of that oversight varies widely. Twenty-seven percent of respondents whose organizations use gen AI say that employees review all content created by gen AI before it is used - for example, before a customer sees a chatbot’s response or before an AI-generated image is used in marketing materials.

A similar share says that 20 percent or less of gen AI-produced content is checked before use. Respondents working in business, legal, and other professional services are much more likely than those in other industries to say that all outputs are reviewed.

The findings suggest that while generative AI use continues to surge, meaningful bottom-line impacts remain limited at the enterprise level. As Michael Chui, Senior Fellow at McKinsey, observes: "It will be interesting to see what happens when more companies begin to follow the road map for successful gen AI implementation in 2025 and beyond."

Read the full report HERE