饾悩饾惃饾惍 饾悅饾悮饾惂'饾惌 饾悅饾惍饾惌 饾悩饾惃饾惍饾惈 饾悥饾悮饾惒 饾惌饾惃 饾悊饾惈饾惃饾惏饾惌饾悺
6/14/20261 min read
饾檳饾櫈饾櫍饾櫄 饾櫎饾櫔饾櫓 饾櫎饾櫅 饾櫓饾櫄饾櫍 enterprise AI projects are 饾櫏饾櫋饾櫀饾櫘饾櫈饾櫍饾櫆 饾櫃饾櫄饾櫅饾櫄饾櫍饾櫒饾櫄. Yet nobody ever cut their way to a championship.
At Fortune's Brainstorm Tech this week, ServiceNow's Chris Bedi shared a number worth sitting with: roughly 90% of enterprise AI use cases target internal productivity and cost control. 饾檳饾櫎饾櫓 饾櫂饾櫔饾櫒饾櫓饾櫎饾櫌饾櫄饾櫑饾櫒. 饾檳饾櫎饾櫓 饾櫍饾櫄饾櫖 饾櫑饾櫄饾櫕饾櫄饾櫍饾櫔饾櫄. 饾檳饾櫎饾櫓 饾櫆饾櫑饾櫎饾櫖饾櫓饾櫇.
The defensive instinct is understandable. Cost savings are easy to measure, easy to approve, and easy to defend in front of a board. Growth bets are messier, riskier.
But the math is skewed.
饾樉饾櫎饾櫒饾櫓-饾櫂饾櫔饾櫓饾櫓饾櫈饾櫍饾櫆 饾櫇饾櫀饾櫒 饾櫀 饾櫅饾櫋饾櫎饾櫎饾櫑. You can only ever save 100% of a cost, and you reach diminishing returns long before that.
饾檪饾櫑饾櫎饾櫖饾櫓饾櫇 饾櫇饾櫀饾櫒 饾櫍饾櫎 饾櫂饾櫄饾櫈饾櫋饾櫈饾櫍饾櫆.
The compounders already proved it. Walmart's CEO frames AI around serving customers better, not just productivity. Domino's rebuilt its operations around technology and captured roughly half of US pizza delivery.
Same tools everyone has. Pointed at the top line.
Here is the encouraging part: the defensive work is not wasted.
Every cost-focused pilot builds something you will need for offense: AI literacy, cleaner data, governance muscle, teams who trust the tools. Defense is the training ground.
The risk is staying there forever. Treating the training ground as the destination.
A practical exercise for your next AI portfolio review:
路 List your live AI use cases
路 Mark each one: does it shrink a cost, or grow revenue and customer value?
路 Look at the ratio
If you land near 90/10, you are exactly average. But average is exposed, because your competitors hold the same superpower. 饾檹饾櫇饾櫄 饾櫃饾櫈饾櫅饾櫅饾櫄饾櫑饾櫄饾櫍饾櫓饾櫈饾櫀饾櫓饾櫎饾櫑 饾櫈饾櫒 饾櫍饾櫎饾櫓 饾櫇饾櫀饾櫕饾櫈饾櫍饾櫆 饾樇饾檮. 饾檮饾櫓 饾櫈饾櫒 饾惏饾悺饾悮饾惌 饾櫘饾櫎饾櫔 饾櫂饾櫇饾櫎饾櫎饾櫒饾櫄 饾櫓饾櫎 饾櫀饾櫈饾櫌 饾樇饾檮 饾櫀饾櫓.
You do not have to flip the ratio overnight. Moving from 90/10 to 70/30 already puts you ahead of most of the field.
So, one question for your leadership team this week: what is the single most promising AI use case in your business that would make customers spend more, stay longer, or smile wider?
Fund that one next.
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