- 74 percent of global leaders say AI will remain a top investment priority even if a recession occurs over the next 12 months.
- Global leaders confident in their talent pipeline are four times as likely to report meaningful AI business value (77 percent vs. 20 percent), including productivity gains, cost savings, revenue growth, and improved decision-making.
- Nearly two thirds of companies’ report seeing their AI investment deliver meaningful business value.
- AI agent adoption is accelerating with 32 percent deploying and scaling agents and a further 27 percent orchestrating multiple agents across their business.
- Nearly three in four leaders are somewhat or greatly concerned about data security, privacy, and risk — the highest concern across all factors.
London, UK (Mar. 31, 2026) – KPMG International has released findings from its first quarterly KPMG Global AI Pulse survey, offering a snapshot of how companies across 20 countries are investing in and realizing value from AI and agent implementation and the business implications and impact this transformation has on workforce, governance and risk management. The survey draws insights from senior business leaders with three-quarters of respondents representing organizations with annual revenues exceeding US$1B+.
The findings show that global enthusiasm for AI is unwavering, but only a few are scaling fast enough to turn that spend into real business value. Leaders plan to invest a weighted global average of US$186 million in AI over the next 12 months, and 74 percent say AI will remain a top investment priority even in the event of a recession. While most organizations (64 percent) cite AI as already delivering meaningful business outcomes, they face growing challenges — from measuring and quantifying value, to adapting governance models at the required speed, managing data privacy and cyber risks, and addressing workforce resistance. These risks and challenges are keeping many global organizations in the experimentation and piloting stage of AI implementation, while a meaningful minority (11 percent) are gaining edge through AI agent deployment, scaling across functions and beginning to coordinate them across workflows.
“The first Global AI Pulse results reinforce that spending more on AI is not the same as creating value,” said Steve Chase, Global Head of AI and Digital Innovation, KPMG International. “Leading organizations are moving beyond enablement, deploying AI agents to reimagine processes and reshape how decisions and work flow across the enterprise. But ultimately, there is no agentic future without trust and no trust without governance that keeps pace. The survey makes clear that sustained investment in people, training and change management is what allows organizations to scale AI responsibly and capture value.”
AI is delivering value, but only for those that scale it
AI value is real but unevenly realized across organizations. A clear gap is present between organizations still in the experimentation phase and those that have moved beyond pilots to fully scaling AI agents and capturing real business value outcomes. While AI adoption is accelerating worldwide, only a small group of ‘AI leaders*’ are seeing clear returns. These leaders consistently outperform others, including 82 percent saying that AI is already delivering meaningful business value, compared to 62 percent of their peers. This is not simply an AI maturity gap; it is a widening performance gap between organizations that treat AI as an enterprise-wide transformation and those that are trying to bolster AI onto existing models and seeing incremental gains.
The difference between AI leaders and their peers is increasingly visible in how AI agents are deployed and used across the enterprise. Organizations are rolling out agents across core functions, specifically in technology and IT (66 percent) to accelerate code development, in operations (55 percent) to orchestrate supply‑chain workflows, and in marketing and sales (43 percent) to power personalized customer experiences. But the real shift lies in how these agents are being used: no longer confined to task automation; they are now coordinating work across functions, routing decisions, surfacing enterprise‑wide insights, and detecting issues early. This shift is most evident among AI leaders, who deploy agents more deeply within business functions, outpacing their peers, in IT (75 percent vs. 64 percent), operations (64 percent vs. 55 percent), and marketing (49 percent vs. 43 percent).
* AI leaders have been defined as: Organizations that are AI mature and that are scaling or operating agentic AI, even if not yet orchestrating/developing multi agent systems. This cohort represents 11 percent of all total respondents within the first Global AI Pulse.
AI value depends on sustained investment in people, behaviors and trust, not just technical scale
AI value is not driven by technology alone but driven by people. Organizations that scale AI alongside workforce investment are nearly four times more likely to report meaningful AI‑driven business value (77 percent vs. 20 percent), spanning productivity, cost savings, growth, and decision‑making. AI leaders understand that bringing people along the AI journey requires more than traditional upskilling, which is why they’re reshaping how they invest in talent – hiring for AI‑specific roles (66 percent vs. 53 percent), pursuing acquihires to access specialized talent (36 percent vs. 29 percent), and introducing AI‑agent shadowing programs (54 percent vs. 39 percent).
As AI agents become part of everyday work, they are also changing what leaders look for in talent – especially at the entry level. The survey shows that success in the AI era is no longer defined by technical skills alone. Leaders are placing greater value on critical thinking and problem‑solving (49 percent), adaptability and continuous learning (52 percent), and creative and strategic thinking (41 percent), reinforcing that human capabilities remain essential even as AI agents continue to scale.
Leaders more confident managing AI risk as organizations mature
AI maturity is closely tied to the ability to scale governance alongside the technology itself, giving organizations the confidence to move faster and operate at scale. While concerns about data security, privacy, and risk are widespread among 75 percent of global leaders, maturity changes how those risks are managed. Among organizations still experimenting with AI, just 20 percent feel confident managing AI‑related risks. That confidence rises sharply to 49 percent among AI leaders, indicating that governance frameworks strengthen as AI becomes embedded into real‑world operations. Rather than worrying about early experimentation, AI leaders’ concerns shift to the challenges that come with scaling—such as data quality and integration, governance and sustainability demands, and increased competition from AI‑native entrants.
The full report, including detailed regional breakdowns, sector analysis, and strategic recommendations, will be available at kpmg.com/aipulse on April 15.
About KPMG International
KPMG is a global organization of independent professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. KPMG is the brand under which the member firms of KPMG International Limited (“KPMG International”) operate and provide professional services. “KPMG” is used to refer to individual member firms within the KPMG organization or to one or more member firms collectively.
KPMG firms operate in 138 countries and territories with more than 276,000 partners and employees working in member firms around the world. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. Each KPMG member firm is responsible for its own obligations and liabilities.
KPMG International Limited is a private English company limited by guarantee. KPMG International Limited and its related entities do not provide services to clients.
For more information, visit www.kpmg.com.
Source: KPMG International
Tags: Artificial Intelligence (AI), KPMG, priorities, survey, technology investment, Transformation, trends, virtual assistant
