CBI: 61% of UK Firms Use AI, but Scaling Gap Splits ROI

AI practitioners have long known that a pilot is not a product. The CBI's new data quantifies that gap: just 15% of companies behind on AI rollout report meeting ROI expectations, compared with 49% of leading adopters. The report shifts the conversation from model capability to deployment maturity, warning that the next phase of AI value depends on integration, data readiness and workforce adoption rather than new algorithms.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has called on the UK government to make artificial intelligence adoption a national economic priority, warning that companies stuck in "pilot mode" risk being permanently left behind. The business group, in a report published with consultancy Oliver Wyman, says Britain should treat the next 10 years as an "adoption decade" and place AI at the center of economic and workforce strategy. The central problem is not AI invention but execution: only a minority of firms are scaling AI across their organizations, and the gap between those leaders and everyone else is already visible in returns.

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The CBI's new data quantifies that gap: just 15% of companies behind on AI rollout report meeting ROI expectations, compared with 49% of leading adopters.

The data makes the stakes clear. Overall, 61% of UK firms say they currently use AI, but adoption varies widely by exposure. Only 46% of domestically focused businesses use the technology, compared with 63% of firms operating internationally. That 17-point gap suggests companies that compete in global markets feel more pressure to deploy AI, while inward-looking businesses may be insulated from competitive urgency. More concerning is the ROI split: 49% of firms leading in AI adoption say they are meeting or surpassing their expected return on investment, compared with just 15% of those behind on rolling out AI. This execution divide means early movers are not just adopting faster; they are extracting value, which can fund further investment and deepen the gap.

The CBI's chief executive, Rain Newton-Smith, framed the next chapter of AI as being defined by how quickly it can be put to work at scale, not by what gets invented. She said Britain needs to treat AI adoption as a national economic priority and that government and business should set a shared ambition to make the UK the best place in the world to adopt AI responsibly, then focus relentlessly on delivery. The report argues for collaboration among government, businesses, workers and civil society to accelerate adoption, build public confidence and ensure AI delivers better jobs, higher living standards and stronger growth in every part of the country.

This is not simply a technology policy story; it is a productivity and investment story. Britain has long struggled with weak productivity growth, and AI is widely seen as one of the few available levers to reverse that trend. But if the payoff from AI remains concentrated among a small group of already-leading firms, the macroeconomic gains will be limited. The 49% versus 15% ROI success gap implies that unsuccessful pilots may be burning capital and creating disillusionment, while successful scale-ups compound advantage. For policymakers, that means targeted support for the "lagging majority" may matter as much as celebrating frontier labs.

The international comparison is especially significant. Firms operating internationally are 17 percentage points more likely to use AI than domestically focused peers. This suggests that exposure to global best practice and competitive pressure accelerates technology adoption. If the government wants AI to lift domestic productivity, it will need to think about how to bring international adoption dynamics to inward-facing sectors such as local services, construction and hospitality, where AI usage may remain low.