Gartner: Nearly Half of CEOs Struggle to Demonstrate AI Financial Returns

Forty-four percent of CEOs struggle to demonstrate AI-driven financial returns to stakeholders, according to Gartner. Yet CEOs are not retreating from technology investment, according to the market researcher. Instead, they are looking to AI and technology to help redesign how their organizations operate, compete and grow.

The 2027 Gartner CEO Survey, conducted in April and May 2026 among 203 global CEOs and senior business executives, found that 62% cited revenue/business growth as a top strategic business priority, while 75% plan to increase technology investment.

“The AI value problem will not be solved by simply adding more AI to existing ways of working,” said David Furlonger, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “CEOs increasingly need technology to create strategic freedom: the ability to enter markets, reshape offerings, reconfigure operations and respond to disruption faster than competitors. For CIOs, that means shifting the conversation from deploying AI to redesigning how the enterprise creates value.”

Eighty percent of CEOs said technology has become strategy, putting technology decisions at the center of conversations about growth, competitiveness and enterprise direction.

At the same time, CEOs are navigating significant disruption. Ninety-three percent said they expect economic volatility to have a high or medium impact on strategic business objectives through 2027, 79% expect that level of impact from persistent conflict, and 77% from AI industrialization. High readiness for these disruptions is considerably lower at 24%, 11% and 20%, respectively.

“The objective is not technology for technology’s sake; it is strategic freedom,” said Furlonger. “Technology creates options for the enterprise: to change direction, pursue new sources of growth and respond when market conditions shift. CIOs who remain downstream implementers risk being excluded from the decisions that increasingly define competitive advantage.”

CEOs are also signaling that greater AI returns will require more than individual productivity improvements. Sixty-three percent identified radically redesigning the operating model as a top power move to accelerate tangible financial returns from AI through 2027. Fifty-two percent cited aggressively deploying AI agents as employees, while 47% cited unlocking or reallocating capital through significant business restructuring.

“The lesson from earlier technology transformations is that value accelerates when organizations redesign around the new capability rather than simply bolt it onto existing processes,” added Furlonger. “AI needs to be built into how workflows, how decisions get made and how the enterprise competes.”

Channel Impact^®
Partners can leverage this information by helping their clients to prioritize AI investments that change how workflows; create modular architectures and reduce rigid dependencies so the organization can pivot, switch providers and scale new capabilities as conditions change; and establish clear financial and operational measures.