New Survey Finds Enterprises Still Can't Turn AI Investment Into Business Value
A large new survey of technology leaders shows that even as companies keep raising AI budgets, most are still failing to embed the business knowledge that makes AI outputs reliable. Data and analytics vendor Alteryx released its 2026 IT Leader Research report this week, built on responses from 1,400 IT leaders worldwide. The study found that eight in ten organizations expect to increase AI spending over the next two years, and most already report at least moderate returns, yet a majority still cannot get the specific rules, definitions and operational knowledge that make up their business logic into the systems and workflows their AI tools depend on. More than three-quarters of respondents said this business context is essential for accurate AI output, exposing a persistent divide between how much companies are investing and how ready their operations actually are to use it. The report also pointed to friction between IT and business units: strategy and delivery work is still concentrated inside IT departments, while business teams mostly just define requirements, a split researchers say continues to slow enterprise AI rollouts even as line-of-business ownership becomes more common.