A KPMG survey shows enterprise AI priorities are maturing. The focus on tactical gains like increased productivity and cost reduction is declining, while strategic goals such as human-AI collaboration, business resilience, and ecosystem partnerships are on the rise.

The most successful organizations will view AI not as a tool for cost-cutting (doing the same with less) but as an expansionary technology. This mindset focuses on using AI to create new products, enter new markets, and dramatically increase scope, rather than just incremental efficiency gains.

Using AI for incremental efficiency gains (10% thinking) is becoming table stakes. True competitive advantage lies in 10X thinking: using AI to fundamentally reimagine your business model, services, and market approach. Companies that only optimize will be outmaneuvered by those that transform.

Most companies use AI for optimization—making existing processes faster and cheaper. The greater opportunity is innovation: using AI to create entirely new forms of value. This "10x thinking" is critical for growth, especially as pure efficiency gains will ultimately lead to a reduced need for human workers.

Contrary to the popular belief that AI's main purpose is to replace humans for less money, user data shows its primary benefit is enabling entirely new functions. As AI costs rise, the focus will shift from simple cost-cutting to strategic investments in capabilities that were previously impossible.

Early AI adoption focused on saving time. The new wave, driven by agentic systems, derives its primary value from enabling completely new functions and significantly increasing throughput, representing a move from efficiency to opportunity-focused ROI.

Most view AI for efficiency, but its true power lies in handling routine tasks to free up human talent. This unlocks capacity for strategic, creative, and relationship-driven work that fuels innovation and growth, shifting the question from cost savings to new capabilities.

59% of creatives believe AI's top benefit is making choices bolder. They hope AI can provide real-time feedback and data-driven gut checks, giving them the evidence needed to convince risk-averse stakeholders to approve more daring creative concepts that might otherwise get watered down.

Top AI creators advise against using AI simply to reduce ad budgets. The real competitive advantage lies in reallocating savings to produce more ambitious concepts that were previously impossible, thereby out-innovating competitors who are merely focused on efficiency gains.