Here’s something worth paying attention to. According to consulting firm EY, businesses are still not seeing substantial revenue gains or cost reductions from using AI.

“I haven‘t met any clients that say I wanna slow down my spend on AI. But I have seen a bunch of clients say, ‘I don’t know where my ROI is today,’” said EY executive Dan Diaso in a conversation with Jessica Lessin during The Information’s AI Agenda Live Summit.

That’s a striking statement, echoing a complaint from businesses about AI that goes back a year or two. And it highlights why so many software and AI companies are offering discounts and freebies to persuade businesses to use AI tools.

What’s made businesses conscious of the returns they’re seeing from AI is usage-based pricing, which Anthropic and other providers began to adopt more widely over the past year. That pricing approach has translated to much higher bills. Companies began to both use the tools more carefully and use open source models more, as we’ve reported.

Even so, Diaso said that spending on AI now is still “based on enthusiasm as opposed to that evidence.” He said only one in 10 of EY’s clients can “actually show where the ROI is happening” in their income statements.

He added that “everybody without a doubt would say that AI is significantly increasing the [organization's] productivity.” But from a CFO’s point of view, “productivity needs to translate into one of two things…Are we making more revenue? Or are we taking costs out of the organization?”