Business leaders still are not seeing transformational gains linked to artificial intelligence and senior leaders still are not acting as a positive example for AI adoption, according to a new report by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

The Institute found 70 per cent of managers believe AI is improving productivity at their organisation, yet five per cent report “transformational” gains and 26 per cent report no gains driven by the technology at all.

In the responses, the CMI highlighted a growing divide between managers and senior leaders. 70 per cent of managers told the CMI that they use AI for advice at work because it is faster and more accurate than humans.

Just 13 per cent of managers strongly agree that senior leaders are actively using AI themselves, despite a majority of senior leaders, some 64 per cent, encouraging their teams to experiment with the AI tools.

More than three years into the AI wave, over two-thirds of UK businesses are still in the pilot phase for the technology, with 68 per cent of respondents stating their organisations are still testing AI deployments.

Nevertheless, 52 per cent of managers expressed strong confidence that their organisation would be “AI future-ready” within the next 12 months.

Jacky Wright, former chief technology and platforms officer at McKinsey and chair of the CMI AI Advisory Council, said: “The UK has a major opportunity to lead globally in AI adoption, innovation and productivity growth. Businesses are already investing at pace, but technology alone will not deliver transformation.

“The organisations seeing the greatest success are those investing equally in leadership, culture and workforce confidence. AI adoption is not just a technical challenge, it is a management challenge.”

The report was based on a poll of more than 1,000 UK managers, as well as interviews with senior business and technology leaders.

The research also found that UK managers are struggling to keep up with the evolution of AI. Just 12 per cent of managers said they are very confident in their ability to manage AI-enabled teams and just one in ten said the same of managing teams using more advanced systems such as AI agents.

Businesses continue to struggle with unlocking the productivity benefits of AI in a cost-effective way. In April, Gartner said that only 28 per cent of AI infrastructure projects meet ROI goals, with 20 per cent failing outright.

The analyst firm said much of the failure was driven by unrealistic expectations of the technology, which needs to be implemented with a clear business case in mind.

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