Only 16% of Companies Extract Transformative AI Value, Says MIT Technology Review Study

A MIT Technology Review Insights poll found that while every surveyed organization is using AI, only 16% report extracting transformative value from their deployments. Forty percent see moderate gains in specific tasks or teams, 21% report meaningful gains, and 23% see minimal or no returns. Most companies are still piloting use cases (38%) or using AI to assist employees with tools such as co‑pilots or chat assistants (35%). Just 12% have AI agents in production, and only 3% say AI is doing most of the work in key processes. Atlan co‑founder Prukalpa Sankar argues that the gap lies in the lack of a “context layer” that translates enterprise data and business logic into machine‑usable information, enabling AI agents to understand and act within the organization’s specific context.