Artificial intelligence has become every organization’s next big bet. But not every investment is paying off.

According to a new global survey from OpenText and Foundry, most enterprises are spending heavily on AI—an average of $5.4 million a year—but only some are realizing meaningful returns. Nearly 70% of mature AI adopters say they’re highly satisfied with their return on AI investment (ROAI). Among newer adopters, however, that figure drops to just 42%.

But what exactly does it mean to be a “mature” AI adopter? AI value doesn’t show up overnight. The organizations seeing results have built the structure and discipline to make AI work at scale. It takes time, trust, and the right foundation. Information that’s secure, governed, and ready to be used intelligently.

Without that, real ROAI will always be out of reach.

The Maturity Divide

For many organizations, the first goal of AI is simple, to increase productivity. Nearly 60% of leaders in our survey ranked it among their top three expected benefits.

Newer adopters tend to focus first on efficiency gains like faster reports, quicker code, cheaper processes. Those are good outcomes, but they merely scratch the surface of what AI can deliver.

More mature AI adopters measure value differently. They take a longer view, looking beyond surface-level automation at how AI can strengthen resilience, reduce risk, and build lasting advantage across the business. As organizations deepen their AI investments, they stop treating AI like a tactical tool to deploy and start seeing it as a long-term business driver. And as their trust in AI-ready information platforms and automation tools grow, they can help their workforce to move faster, make better decisions, and better scale their impact across the organization.

A New, More Empowered Employee

Fifty-two percent of today’s workers are using AI-enabled tools, with that figure expected to increase to 67% within three years.

Mature AI adopters are enhancing their teams by helping them evolve into “digital knowledge workers.” These employees go beyond using AI passively and simply automating repetitive tasks. Increasingly, they are working side by side with agentic AI that learns and adapts from its interactions, acting on its own without constant human direction.

This shift accomplishes multiple things. For one, it gives the worker contextual data and real-time insights to enhance their work. It also frees up their time and energy for collaboration and more meaningful contributions.

We’re already seeing this reflected in the survey data. Fifty-three percent of organizations reported better decision-making through AI integration, 42% noted increased innovation and 40% saw stronger collaboration across teams. With the benefits of AI growing with experience, those numbers are likely to rise.

Information Readiness is Key

Of course, empowering people with AI only works when they can trust the information driving it. Agentic AI and digital knowledge workers thrive on context, which means having data that’s accurate, trustworthy and accessible when they need it. Without that, even the most advanced tools can create more noise than value.

That’s why the path to ROAI doesn’t necessarily start with more AI. It starts with better, more secure, well-governed information. Across all levels of maturity, nearly all organizations agree that information readiness is essential to AI success.

When data is properly managed—clean, classified, and compliant—AI systems can learn and perform reliably. When it’s not, those same systems become costly experiments in chasing insight without control.

Organizations that make information easier to manage, improve governance, and build in security from the start are getting the best results. When governance builds trust, trust builds maturity, and maturity fuels ROAI.

The promise of AI is real, but it isn’t automatic. It’s earned through patience, experience, and a good foundation. Get that foundation right, and you give yourself the best chance to realize AI’s full potential.

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