Research & Benchmarks

Know where you stand.

How AI transforms companies, where it pays first, and 12 benchmarks for your industry and role, built on research from Ardent Partners, Gartner, McKinsey, Atradius, Baymard and more.

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12 benchmarks32 cited sources

AI in companies

How AI transforms a company, and how you benefit.

Almost every company now uses AI; few see it in their results. The difference is not the model. It is picking the right workflow, measuring it and scaling what works.

$2.6–4.4TValue generative AI could add to the global economy every year, 75% of it in customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering and R&D¹

88%Of organisations already use AI in at least one business function²

39%Report any profit (EBIT) impact from AI; for most of them it is under 5% of EBIT²

+14%More issues resolved per hour when support agents work with a generative-AI assistant, +34% for newer staff³

01 · Explore

Find where AI pays in your company

Map your workflows, tools and costs. Most value sits in repetitive work between systems, not in a chatbot.

AI readiness & ROI Knowledge-work efficiency

02 · Measure

Put a number on the gap

Benchmark the workflow against the market so the business case is built on data, not on a demo.

Accounts payable Customer service cost-to-serve Speed-to-lead

03 · Automate

Ship one workflow to production

Start with one workflow, a human checkpoint and a baseline. Prove the saving before scaling.

Order-to-cash & DSO Document processing SaaS spend

04 · Scale

Reuse what works

Reuse the connectors and review queue for the next workflow, and fix the platforms that slow you down.

Financial close Technical debt E-commerce conversion

Why most AI projects don’t pay off

Starting with a tool instead of a workflow and a cost line
No baseline, so nobody can prove the saving
Pilots that never reach production: Gartner expects over 40% of agentic-AI projects to be cancelled by 2027⁴
No human checkpoint or audit trail, so risk teams block the roll-out

Sources

1
McKinsey Global Institute, The economic potential of generative AI (June 2023). mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/the-economic-potential-of-generative-ai-the-next-productivity-frontier
2
McKinsey & Company, The state of AI in 2025 (1,993 participants). mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai
3
Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, “Generative AI at Work”, NBER Working Paper 31161 (5,179 agents). nber.org/papers/w31161
4
Gartner press release, “Over 40% of Agentic AI Projects Will Be Canceled by End of 2027” (25 Jun 2025). gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-06-25-gartner-predicts-over-40-percent-of-agentic-ai-projects-will-be-canceled-by-end-of-2027

Two ways in

Start free. Go deep with the full study.

Free snapshot

Your position in minutes

Answer a few questions on the workflow you pick. We compare your answers with the published market reference and email you where you stand.

No data access needed
Your position vs market average and top performers
The one KPI worth fixing first

Choose a benchmark

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Industry report · $199

The full benchmark study

An in-depth report for each benchmark: the market, the benchmark, a cost model, how leaders close the gap and a roadmap. Buy once, download, use it with your team.

Cost-of-the-gap model with worked examples
Business-case template
KPI scorecard
Maturity self-assessment

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New to AI? Start here

Three benchmarks, no heavy integration.

If AI is new in your company, begin where the data is easy to get and the answer comes fast. Each one points you to the next step.

Step 1

AI readiness & ROI benchmark

Your teams use AI, but is it moving the numbers?

Turnaround 2–3 weeks Step 2

Speed-to-lead benchmark

How fast do you answer a new lead, and how many go cold while they wait?

Turnaround 1–2 weeks Step 3

SaaS spend & licence utilisation benchmark

How many of the licences you pay for are actually used?

Turnaround 2–4 weeks

2026 · Market benchmarks 12 benchmarks.
One question.

How do your numbers compare with the market? Pick the workflow that matters most to you. Each benchmark shows the published reference, what we measure and what you receive.

Find your benchmark