The evidence behind Ambit Index™
Organisations are measuring AI investment, usage and adoption. Leading firms are pointing to something else that decides whether it pays off.
The gap
report established AI ROI
KPMG · Global AI Pulse Q2 2026 · June 2026
Adoption is accelerating (the "AI is part of everyday work" stage jumped from 13% to 22% in one quarter), but the share of organisations with established ROI fell in the same quarter, from 8% to 7%.
n=2,145 C-suite and senior leaders, 20 markets. Fieldwork Apr–May 2026.
Getting value from AI adoption is where most organisations are stuck.
of frontline employees are now regular AI users
BCG · AI at Work 2026 · June 2026
74% of frontline employees are now regular AI users, up 23 points on 2025. But 66% get limited or no guidance on what to do with the time it frees up. BCG's finding: employees with clear direction but limited tools measurably outperform those with strong tools and no direction.
n≈12,000 across 12+ markets.
People with a clear direction get more out of AI than people with better tools.
Why it's human
organisational readiness matters nearly twice as much as individual readiness
McKinsey · Three Horizons · July 2026
Organisational readiness accounts for 48% of the difference between leaders who report value from AI and those who don't; personal readiness accounts for 25%. McKinsey names trust in the organisation as the critical factor across all three horizons of the study.
n=608 leaders.
The culture and conditions in your organisation matter more than your employees’ individual AI skills.
of CEOs say AI success depends more on people's adoption than on technology
IBM IBV · 2026 CEO Study · May 2026
2,000 CEOs say people decide whether AI pays off. In the same study, CEOs estimate only 25% of their workforce uses AI regularly, while 86% say their employees have the skills to collaborate with AI.
n=2,000 CEOs, 33 geographies, with Oxford Economics. Fieldwork Feb to Apr 2026. IBM sells AI platforms and consulting.
AI success depends more on your people than on the technology, yet CEOs can only estimate how their people are doing.
One proof per relationship
Each of the four things we measure has its own evidence behind it.
of executives say their company has a clear AI ambition and shares progress
Oliver Wyman Forum · The AI Reality Check · October 2026
Among non-managers, 11% see a clear AI direction. Oliver Wyman finds confidence in the company "falls sharply with every step down the hierarchy", across five job levels.
Global Voices survey, Apr 2026: executives n=659; five job levels n=8,038; 15 markets.
Your AI strategy may not have reached the people doing the work.
of workplace AI users say they have downplayed how good they are with AI
Oliver Wyman Forum · The AI Reality Check · October 2026
Among daily users, 62%. People play it down to avoid extra work, scrutiny or looking replaceable. Peer-reviewed research points the same way: disclosing AI use costs people trust, and the penalty shrinks when AI use is a shared, normal practice (Schilke & Reimann, 2025).
Global Voices survey, Apr and Aug 2026, n≈12,800 per wave, 15 markets.
Without trust, your best AI users may keep their skills to themselves.
of AI users say they sometimes deliver AI work they couldn’t explain if asked
Glean · Work AI Index 2026 · June 2026
In a KPMG and UT Austin study of 523 KPMG juniors working with an AI agent, about half did better than AI alone and a quarter did worse. The difference was how they worked with AI, not what they knew.
6,000 workers in the US, UK and Australia, Dec 2025 – Jan 2026. Co-authored with researchers from Stanford, UC Berkeley and UCL. Glean sells AI work tools. The KPMG study was designed and graded by KPMG.
What decides the value is how people work with AI, and you can’t see that in the finished work.
as likely to exceed revenue goals when units redesign how work gets done
Gartner · Manager survey · July 2025
Business units that redesign how work gets done, rather than just deploy AI and encourage employees to use it, are twice as likely to exceed revenue goals.
n=1,973 managers. Manager-reported.
The value comes from redesigning the work.
The emerging pattern
AI adoption is widespread, but most organisations can’t yet prove a return.
Organisational culture and conditions matter more than individual skill.
A clear AI direction at the top fades on the way down.
The human skills AI makes more valuable are the ones most at risk of eroding.
Workslop starts where judgement stops, and it erodes trust between people.
Introducing Ambit Index™
What's already measured
What's missing
Ambit Index measures the conditions that enable organisations to navigate change, adapt to AI, and create sustainable value. What gets measured gets managed, and the most important variables in AI transformation have largely stayed invisible.
Start with a baseline: where your people are with the change, and what to work on first.
Talk to usSources
Every figure above is dated and named. Ask for the primary source on any of them.
