AI Delivers Enterprise Value - But Not For Everyone
CIODIVE, Tuesday, March 31st, 2026
Tech leaders will nearly double spending on the technology this year, but skills gaps and security concerns threaten ROI, according to a KPMG survey.
Dive Brief:
U.S. tech leaders expect to spend $207 million on AI over the next 12 months even if a recession occurs, nearly doubling their spending forecast from last year, according to KPMG data. The accounting giant polled more than 2,000 global tech leaders, including 237 U.S. based executives, for the Tuesday report.
As spending accelerates, much of the focus of that capital is in deploying AI agents, with 57% of survey responders expecting humans to primarily manage AI agents for the next two or three years.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents reported measurable ROI from their AI strategies, but there's a gap between companies in the experimentation phase and those who have fully scaled their AI agents. Employee skills gaps, difficulty scaling use cases, data privacy and cybersecurity concerns were among the top barriers to seeing ROI from AI pilots.