What happened
Deloitte's AI Institute released the latest edition of its 'State of AI in the Enterprise' survey, based on 3,500 director- to C-suite-level leaders across 25 countries and six industries. It finds AI is delivering on speed but not on transformation: '81% of companies surveyed' report faster decision-making and execution, yet 'only 25% say they are using AI to deeply transform the business.' ROI is broadening — '28% of companies now reporting revenue gains from AI, up from 20% in January' — but cost visibility is thin: '71% track total AI inference and API spend' while 'only 51% track token volume and 44% track per-unit inference cost.' Critically for governance, '40% of companies now allow AI to execute decisions without human approval,' while '23% say accountability remains unclear when an AI system produces a negative outcome' and only 15% report a significant shift in decision-making authority from AI.
Why it matters
Quantifies the enterprise AI value-and-accountability gap at scale: leaders are authorizing autonomous AI ahead of the governance, cost-visibility, and accountability structures to support it — the exact framing a board or CRO needs to calibrate AI risk appetite and ROI expectations.
Action needed
Benchmark your own AI governance, unit-cost visibility, and autonomy approvals against the survey's headline metrics, and brief the board on the accountability gap.