Organizations are already seeing material benefits from gen AI use, reporting both cost decreases and revenue jumps in the business units deploying the technology. The survey also provides insights into the kinds of risks presented by gen AI—most notably, inaccuracy, as well as the emerging practices of top performers to mitigate those challenges and capture value.

Interest in generative AI has also brightened the spotlight on a broader set of AI capabilities. For the past six years, AI adoption by respondents’ organizations has hovered at about 50 percent. This year, the survey finds that adoption has jumped to 72 percent . And the interest is truly global in scope. Our 2023 survey found that AI adoption did not reach 66 percent in any region; however, this fiscal year, more than two-thirds of respondents in nearly every region say their organizations are using AI.¹ Looking by industry, the biggest increase in adoption can be found in professional services.

Most respondents now report that their organizations—and they as individuals—are using gen AI. Sixty-five percent of respondents say their organizations are regularly using gen AI in at least one business function, up from one-third last year. The average organization using gen AI is doing so in two functions, most often in marketing and sales and in product and service development—two functions in which prior research determined that gen AI adoption could generate the most value³—as well as in IT. The biggest increase from 2023 is found in marketing and sales, where reported adoption has more than doubled. Yet across functions, only two use cases, both within marketing and sales, are reported by 15 percent or more of respondents