Dive Brief:
- Blue-chip companies aren’t disclosing how much they’re investing in AI or what they’re getting in return, according to an analysis by Flexera published Wednesday. The enterprise software company examined annual filings by the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average as of August 2026.
- Over three-quarters of the companies reported actively using AI and identified specific use cases, but just two disclosed clearly identifiable AI-related investment amounts. Those same two companies were the only ones to provide a quantified AI-linked business result in their annual filings, Flexera found.
- “The challenge is that there is no single, widely accepted formula for AI economics yet,” Conal Gallagher, CIO and CISO at Flexera, said in an email. “A developer using a coding assistant, an analyst summarizing documents and a salesperson drafting emails may all be using AI, but the costs, expected outcomes and appropriate measures of value are different.”
Dive Insight:
Measurable business value from AI has been difficult to pin down. Less than half of more than 1,500 organizations across industries surveyed by software company Aptean said AI was essential to their core work, even though 98% had already adopted AI. Most companies are struggling to find and define ROI, according to an SAP survey of 2,600 director and C-suite level executives at midmarket and enterprise organizations.
Gallagher defined measurable value as an organization’s ability to connect investments to a specific business outcome, whether that's increased productivity, reduced operating costs, accelerated delivery or revenue growth.
Companies should start by clearly defining how much they’re pouring into AI implementation.
“Before you can calculate the return, you need a credible view of the investment,” Gallagher told Channel Dive. “That becomes complicated because AI costs can appear across software licenses, cloud infrastructure, data platforms, tokens and AI agents, often under different budgets and owners.”
Gallagher added that companies are more likely to disclose AI risk than AI value. Among the Dow companies, 9 in 10 identified company-specific risks in annual filings, compared to two organizations that outlined AI outcomes.
Some industry experts question whether AI is creating significant business value for enterprises. An August McKinsey survey of over 1,700 executives found that just 37% attributed any measurable earnings to AI, though 80% said it has improved their productivity.
“A striking finding this year is the gap between individual gains and enterprise impact,” McKinsey Senior Partner Dan Tinkoff wrote in the report.
For companies or partners looking to accurately assess AI value, methods matter, according to Gallagher. Attempting to calculate one enterprise-wide ROI can be fruitless — starting at the use-case level and identifying the business owner, establishing the full cost, defining the outcome and reviewing actual consumption and value over time is the way to go.
“We’re seeing that companies are willing to discuss where and how they are using, or plan to use, AI across their organization,” Gallagher said. “However, they may also be cautious about public reporting because the measurement itself is still maturing. Unlike traditional software spending, every AI prompt, response, API call and workflow can generate consumption and cost, while benefits like time saved or faster delivery can be difficult to isolate and attribute directly to AI.”
Looking ahead, Gallagher said enterprises will be expected to disclose what they're spending on AI in the near-term as CFOs, CIOs, and investors demand clearer evidence of its financial impact.
Gallagher added that AI spending can quickly become concentrated among a handful of users, often without finance teams realizing it until the bill arrives. For example, one company working with Flexera discovered after reviewing its spending that just four users were responsible for 35% of its AI costs.
“I expect AI financial reporting to become more rigorous as companies mature their measurement practices,” Gallagher said. “The organizations best prepared for that shift will be those that can connect AI investment to business value and use those insights to make smarter decisions about future spending.”
