Beyond the hype: GenAI is delivering, new KPMG survey shows

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

Talk about arriving with a bang. Amid much hype, generative AI (GenAI) is already making a massive impact on the business world, creating both real value today and bullish confidence in its game-changing potential going forward, according to a new KPMG survey.

This momentum reflects a rare blend of unbridled optimism and tangible outcomes. Far more than just the latest buzzword, GenAI has quickly emerged as a buzz-saw of innovation that is dramatically reshaping business strategy and planning, our survey results show. It’s flipping the script on “killer apps” and technology fads that, more often than not, overpromise and underdeliver.

And business leaders are leaning in. They’re expanding their GenAI investments and seeing returns in real-time, according to our findings—and that rapid ROI is driving plans to scale the technology faster still. They’re using GenAI in their decision-making, integrating the technology into more functions, and boosting workforce readiness through substantial investments in training and hiring.

Here’s a closer look at some of the eye-opening new insights from our GenAI 2024 Survey.

As our new report also shows, GenAI is being adopted across a broad range of industries—both expected and unexpected. In fact, the top overall use case in our survey was inventory management in the industrial markets, where two-thirds of respondents in that sector say they are generating value. That was followed by document assessment in healthcare and life sciences (57 percent) and workflow automation in the technology and media sector (43 percent).

A common throughline across all three of those top use cases is operational and workflow efficiency, so it’s no surprise that increasing productivity was the top overall goal for GenAI in our survey. (Although it’s worth noting that within the subset of C-suite respondents, revenue growth was the No. 1 goal.)

Regardless of industry, the top business functions for GenAI adoption are:

Despite this progress, gaps in capabilities persist, posing some challenges to scaling GenAI more rapidly. Case in point: Just 12 percent of the companies in our survey feel confident that they can build out their GenAI technologies in-house, while half plan on buying or leasing from partners, and another 29 percent expect a mix of build and buy.

Other potential speed bumps include privacy, regulatory, and security challenges, which rated as the top three GenAI risks in our 2024 report. But here again, perspectives are getting more optimistic as companies have had another year to assess the obstacles and shore up critical areas such as cybersecurity, data quality, and overall AI governance. 

For much more on the top ways that companies are managing GenAI’s risks, streamlining regulatory concerns, preparing their workforces, and rapidly scaling their GenAI opportunities, download the full GenAI 2024 Survey now and explore more of our related insights below.