Most Companies Still Can't Point to AI Profits, McKinsey Finds

Key points

• Only 6 percent of the 1,719 professionals McKinsey surveyed in 2026 qualify as AI "high performers," the same share as in 2025.
• 37 percent of respondents say AI has contributed at least something to their EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes, a standard measure of profit), flat year-on-year.
• 80 percent of individual AI users say the technology improved their personal productivity, but those gains haven't shown up in company-wide finances.
• 39 percent of respondents expect their employer to cut jobs because of AI in the coming year, up from 32 percent in 2025.
• 20 percent of respondents say AI running costs have actively limited how much of it they can use.

McKinsey's annual State of AI report for 2026 carries an optimistic headline: businesses are "on the road to ROI." Read past the title and the numbers tell a more cautious story.

ROI stands for return on investment, the basic question of whether you get more money back than you put in. For most companies surveyed, the answer is still: not clearly, not yet.

So who is actually making money from AI?

Very few. McKinsey defines an AI "high performer" as an organisation where AI accounts for at least 5 percent of EBIT and leaders describe its impact as significant. Just 6 percent of respondents met both conditions, identical to last year.

A broader 37 percent say AI has contributed something to profits. McKinsey concedes that share is "about the same" as 2025. Flat, despite another year of heavy spending.

What is everyone actually using AI for?

Agents are the new focus. An AI agent is software that carries out multi-step tasks on its own, going further than a simple chatbot. Among companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, 40 percent say they're now scaling AI agents across their business, up from 27 percent in 2025.

Our 12 August story "Half of companies don't trust their own AI agents. Bad data is why." found that most organisations feed AI agents less than half their company data, which matters a lot when those agents are being asked to drive real revenue.

Coding agents, tools that write or assist with software code, are also climbing. Nearly a third of respondents say their company chose to build software in-house using these tools rather than buy an existing product. That shift carries a practical risk McKinsey doesn't dwell on: AI-generated code can contain bugs or security gaps that skilled developers then have to find and fix.

Should employees worry about their jobs?

Worry is spreading, though reality has repeatedly lagged the fear. In 2025, job cuts from AI "fell well short" of what the previous year's respondents had predicted, McKinsey notes. History counsels some scepticism.

Still, the direction is clear. This year, 39 percent of respondents expect their employer to cut headcount because of AI in the next twelve months, up from 32 percent last year. A separate 43 percent still expect little or no change.

For workers, the honest read is: watch what your employer actually does, not what survey respondents think others will do.

What does this mean for ordinary people at work?

Eighty percent of employees who use AI day-to-day say it improved their personal productivity. That's the clearest win in the entire report.

Individual productivity gains and company-wide profit growth are two different things. A nurse who documents faster or a shop owner who drafts emails quicker may feel the benefit; their employer's balance sheet may not, at least not yet.

Costs are a real limit too. One in five respondents said AI running costs have constrained how widely their organisation can deploy the technology.

The judgement worth making here: McKinsey's own data shows conviction outpacing results by a wide margin, and that gap has now held for two consecutive years. Companies aren't pivoting away from AI, but any CFO who expected a clean profit story by 2026 should be asking harder questions about the timeline.

Common questions

Does this mean AI is failing?

Not exactly. Individual users report real productivity gains and adoption is rising. The gap is between what companies expect AI to do for profits and what it has demonstrably done so far.

When might companies see clearer returns?

McKinsey's report doesn't give a timeline. More respondents than last year believe AI will reshape their business within three years, but that's expectation, not evidence.