Key Takeaways
- A new study found that businesses are more concerned with financial goals than innovation when it comes to AI.
- More specifically, executives are measuring AI success based on cost savings (53%) and return-on-investment (50%) in 2026.
- This is a big shift in just the last year, with the uncertainty of the economy likely driving cost concerns over developing new technologies.
The honeymoon period is over for AI tools, with executives now measuring the success of the technology on financial goals rather than pure innovation.
A new study found that costing savings (53%) and return-on-investment (50%) are the most important factors when evaluating AI tools.
More notably, this is a big change of perspective from just last year, when more nebulous metrics were considered most important, like optimized product designs and improved data processing.
AI Success: Financial Goals Over Innovation
According to a new study from TE Connectivity, the financial benefits are more important than product innovations when it comes to AI for business executives in 2026.
More specifically, 66% of executives say that financial goals are the top priority when it comes to evaluating the use of AI at their respective businesses.
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On top of that, 53% of executives are measuring the success of AI tools based on cost savings, while 50% are doing so based exclusively on return-on-investment (ROI), the two highest metrics across the research.
A Big Change from 2025
The fact that business executives are pivoting entirely to the financial implications of AI is headline-worthy in its own right. However, it’s also worth noting that this is a big change from 2025.
In fact, only 46% of business executives were willing to admit that they are focused on financial goals over innovation in 2025, which represents a 20% difference in just a single year.
The same is true of the more specific measurements of success too. Only 30% were measuring AI success by return-on-investment in 2025, another 20% increase year-over-year.
55% of executives were measuring AI success based on optimized product designs. In 2026, that number is only 32%.
AI Needs to Start Making Money
Since its inception in 2022, the modern iteration of AI has seen a lot of promises without a lot of results. ROI in particular has been hard to come by, with businesses reporting little revenue from a lot of investment.
That’s why this study is far from surprising. Business executives the world over have given the technology plenty of breathing room to be improve productivity, increase revenue, and “transform the business world,” as experts have predicted.
Now, it’s time to pay the piper, and if AI can’t deliver, there could be some serious economic issues for businesses that have been laying off employees in anticipation of this eventual return.
