Enterprise AI Budgets Surge While ROI Remains Elusive

Forrester: genAI budgets surge year-over-year but majority of orgs fail to show sustained ROI

Early pilots look promising but value becomes harder to explain as systems scale, costs fluctuate, and governance expectations rise. Boards and CFOs are now demanding measurable financial returns, marking a maturity inflection point in enterprise AI — the conversation has shifted from 'are you investing?' to 'what is the measurable return?'

ROI failure is organizational, not technical — legacy financial models can't accommodate AI economics

AI costs are consumption-based and unpredictable; benefits are often indirect or risk-adjusted rather than transactional. This is fundamentally incompatible with established financial models designed for ERP systems, infrastructure refreshes, and SaaS licenses. ROI erodes not because AI stops working, but because organizations lose the ability to explain, defend, and prioritize it.

Zorella: 'IT finance isn't there because IT spends a lot of money — it's there to drive strategic outcomes'

Greg Zorella (Forrester, lead principal analyst for IT financial management) argues mature cost transparency requires shared attribution models, reliable data, and alignment across IT, product, sales, and marketing on how value is defined. Most enterprises underestimate this organizational lift. His advice: 'Trying to do that all at once is just too much' — start with narrow proof points.

Zorella reframes budget overruns: overspending may be rational with proper prioritization mechanisms

The real failure is not exceeding AI budgets — overspending may be rational when reflecting deliberate investment in higher-value initiatives. The failure is overspending without a mechanism to deprioritize lower-impact work when higher-opportunity alternatives emerge.

BlackLine CIO Sumit Johar: enterprise AI budgets are constrained and don't expand indefinitely

Johar (CIO of BlackLine, a finance automation software company) grounds the analyst framing in operational reality. Finite budget constraints add urgency to the ROI accountability conversation as AI investments move beyond pilot phase and into scaling.

Winning enterprises treat IT finance as strategic capability and start with narrow proof points

Organizations making progress connect technology investment directly to business growth and competitive advantage. They build ROI credibility through specific, measurable wins that demonstrate how better financial visibility improves decision-making — rather than attempting to transform all cost transparency simultaneously.