ARMONK, NY – A new study from the IBM Institute for Business Value finds that nearly 8 in 10 executives (79%) expect AI to contribute significantly to their revenue by 2030 – up from 40% today – and yet few (24%) have a clear view of where that revenue will come from.
Despite this uncertainty, investments are accelerating. Respondents predict that investments in AI will increase by approximately 150% by 2030. At the same time, 68% of executives surveyed fear their AI efforts will fail due to a lack of integration with their core businesses.
“AI will not only support businesses: it will define them,” said Mohamad Ali, senior vice president of IBM Consulting. “By 2030, the companies that win will integrate AI into every decision and operation. They will own powerful AI assets, scale faster than their competitors, bring innovations to market quickly, and deliver real, measurable business results through technology and automation.”
THE global studybased on insights from 2,000 senior executives, shows that AI is emerging as a key driver of business growth through 2030. The findings suggest that future success will come from bolder strategic bets, even though many executives surveyed face a gap between expectations and results.
Key findings include:
Executives look beyond AI effectiveness to drive future gains
- With nearly half (47%) of AI spending now focused on efficiency, respondents expect 62% of AI spending to be on innovation by 2030.
- 64% of executives surveyed believe that by 2030, competitive advantage will come from innovation rather than optimizing resources.
- 70% of executives surveyed plan to reinvest the value of AI-driven productivity gains into growth initiatives.
- Respondents expect AI to increase productivity by 42% by 2030, and 67% expect to capture most of the productivity gains from AI by then.
Competitive advantage will depend on the right technological bets
- While most executives surveyed (57%) say their competitive advantage will come from the sophistication of AI models, only 28% have a clear vision of the AI models they will need by 2030.
- 82% of respondents expect their AI capabilities to be multi-model by 2030, and 72% expect small language models (SLM) to outperform large language models (LLM).
- Surveyed organizations scaling AI across multiple workflows, using smaller, custom, and commodity AI models, predict 24% higher productivity gains and 55% higher operating margins by 2030.
- While 59% of respondents say quantum AI will transform their industry by 2030, only 27% plan to use quantum computing by then – a gap that highlights the opportunities for organizations ready to act today.
AI is redefining leadership and the skills that matter most
- Executives surveyed expect 25% of corporate boards to have an AI advisor or co-decision maker by 2030, and 74% say AI will redefine leadership roles across the enterprise, with two-thirds believing AI will create entirely new leadership roles.
- Meanwhile, 67% of respondents say jobs are increasingly short-term; 57% expect most current employee skills to be obsolete by 2030; and 67% agree that mindset will matter more than skills.
- Additionally, 67% of executives surveyed expect AI to eliminate the resource and skills constraints that are holding their organization back today.
- For AI-focused organizations, the analysis shows they are 48% more likely to create new roles and 46% more likely to rethink their organizational structure to drive more AI value.
The full study can be viewed HERE.
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