The two visions for AI driving executives and Wall Street apart
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Investors expect returns from record artificial intelligence investments to come faster than executives do, according to a new Teneo survey of more than 350 global public company CEOs and 400 institutional investors.
Why it matters: Wall Street is tired of waiting for returns on all this AI investment. Based on these survey results, that impatience could leave investors disappointed in 2026.
What they're saying: "AI spending is set to rise again in 2026, with 68% of CEOs planning to increase their investment," said Ursula Burns, chairwoman of Teneo.
- "Investors, however, are becoming increasingly impatient for ROI [return on investment] on these AI investments, creating a tension that will be important to watch in the year ahead," she added in the survey release.
By the numbers: 53% of investors expect a return on AI investments over the next six months or less, while only 16% of large-cap CEOs surveyed said they could deliver in that window.
- AI companies are on track to spend about $700 billion for 2025.
- Fewer than half of current AI projects are ROI-positive, despite progress on internal efficiencies and customer-facing applications, according to Teneo.
Zoom out: A demand for clarity on AI's return is made clear by recent market reactions to tech company earnings results and capex announcements.
- Google's capex is equal to about 25% of its annual revenue, much less than Meta's spending, which is closer to half its annual revenue.
- Shares of Alphabet, Google's parent, are up over 75% in the last six months, making it the best performer of the Magnificent 7, while Meta has stalled, down about 5% over the same period.
- Investors are rewarding the tech players that are seen as efficient spenders in how they allocate capital to their AI ambitions.
Yes, but: Part of the challenge is that it's difficult to define what returns on AI investment should look like.
- "We are changing how humans work. And so how do we measure this... this is a major change that we don't even have tools yet to answer all those questions," Kasia Wakarecy, vice president at Pythian, told Axios at a recent expert voices roundtable lunch discussing the return on AI investment.
The bottom line: Wall Street and the C-suite have different timelines in mind for the ROI on AI.
- That very disagreement could define the market's winners and losers going forward.
