January 28, 2026, 8:08 AM EST. New January reports from PwC, Anthropic and OpenAI warn that AI adoption is rising but returns lag. The 56% of CEOs reporting no revenue or cost reductions, and 12% reaping both, mark a shift from counting users to counting auditable outcomes. The lesson: pilots proliferate without workflow redesign. Boards are urged to demand CIOs report on economic primitives-task complexity, autonomy and success rates-rather than login counts. Anthropic data show a 3.3-hour average for software development tasks and 1.8 hours for personal-management tasks, underscoring the need to target high-value, high-complexity work. OpenAI highlights a power user dividend and a broad capability overhang across 70+ countries. In short: value follows integration, not usage alone.
