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Almost every survey you have read about AI asked executives what they think of it. Four central banks asked nearly six thousand senior executives what AI has actually done to their own companies. The answers do not match the conference stage.
In this episode, Stephen Forte covers:
- Why this survey is different — The authors bolted the same AI questions onto four panels that already existed: the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Survey of Business Uncertainty, the Bank of England's Decision Maker Panel, the Bundesbank's panel of German firms, and a monthly executive survey run out of Macquarie University in Sydney. Nearly six thousand firms, respondents unpaid and identity-verified. And when these executives forecast their own sales and headcount a year out, the forecasts come true.
- Sixty-nine percent bought it. Eighty-nine percent cannot find it. — Adoption runs 78 percent in the United States, 71 in the United Kingdom, 65 in Germany and 59 in Australia. But more than 90 percent of these executives report no impact of AI on employment at their own firm over the past three years, and 89 percent report no impact on labour productivity measured as sales per employee. The most common single deployment, at 41 percent of firms, is text generation. Writing things.
- The forecast that appears to contradict the measurement — The same executives predict productivity up 1.4 percent, output up 0.8 percent and employment down 0.7 percent over the next three years, which the authors convert to roughly 1.75 million fewer jobs by 2028 across the four countries. American executives are most bullish at 2.25 percent. Asked the same question, employees expect employment at their firms to rise half a percent. Same firms, same three years, opposite signs.
- Bain's circular bet with a structural leak — Among 951 companies above 100 million US dollars in revenue that actually measured their AI cost savings, 40 percent came in at 10 percent or less against expectations of up to 20. The top reason was not the models: companies could not reliably get at their own data. And 90 percent of the companies that missed plan to raise their AI budget anyway, with 44 percent naming the savings they never achieved as a funding source for the next round.
- Why being small is now an advantage — Where the measured gains do show up, they concentrate in smaller organisations while large teams in traditional industries lag, and the gap is widening. Same technology. Less process to renegotiate.
Plus the diagnostic underneath all of it. Take the one number your board already tracks that would move if AI were working, then ask whether any AI you have deployed touches the process that produces it. Not adjacent to it. Touches it.
Sources:
- Firm Data on AI, NBER Working Paper 34836, February 2026, revised March 2026 — NBER
- Automation and AI Pathfinder Survey 2026, on AI cost savings falling short of target — Bain and Company, via Insurance Journal
- TUI confirms EBIT outlook following the third quarter, 12 August 2026 — TUI Group
- The state of AI impact in engineering, on the Q2 2026 AI Impact Report — Refactoring
The AI Brief from the YPO Technology Network is a daily executive briefing on the AI developments that matter to business leaders. Hosted by Stephen Forte.
