Avanade Study Flags APAC AI Investment Gaps

Quick Read

What Readers Should Know

Avanade’s research finds that 79% of APAC respondents believe too much AI spending targets incremental improvements. Only 17% report fundamentally reshaping team operations, while 68% say financial returns have not been formally calculated and reviewed.

Key Takeaways

The APAC findings draw on responses from 1,400 business decision-makers.
Seventy-nine percent say too much AI investment favors incremental improvements.
Only 17% report fundamentally reshaping their entire teams’ operations.
Sixty-eight percent report a gap in formally calculating and reviewing financial returns.
The research covers large organizations, rather than businesses of every size.

While confidence in AI adoption is high, fewer respondents report major changes to team operations or formally reviewed financial returns.

Seventy-nine percent of Asia-Pacific respondents in an Avanade study say their organizations direct too much AI investment toward incremental improvements rather than transformational opportunities.

The finding comes from Build Beyond Limits: The AI Reality Report, released on November 4, 2026. It points to a gap between confidence in AI adoption and the extent to which organizations have changed how work gets done.

Among 1,400 APAC respondents, 76% described their teams as Established, Advanced, or AI-first. Another 73% expressed high or complete confidence that their teams use AI effectively to deliver their strategies and goals.

Yet only 17% said they had fundamentally reshaped how their entire teams operate around AI’s possibilities.

Adoption does not tell the whole story

The findings suggest that introducing AI tools and redesigning a business are different stages of change.

An organization may use AI to make an existing process faster without changing responsibilities, decision-making, or the service it provides. That improvement can still be useful, but it requires different expectations from a project intended to create a new way of operating.

Bhavya Kapoor, President of Avanade Asia Pacific, said leaders need to distinguish between these ambitions and align investment decisions with appropriate measures of success.

For projects intended to transform operations, Kapoor emphasized redesigning workflows, responsibilities, and decision-making, with clear ownership of outcomes.

Financial measurement remains uneven

The study also found that 68% of APAC respondents said their organizations had yet to formally calculate the financial return on AI investment and have the results reviewed by finance or senior leadership.

Separately, only 43% said their organizations use business-value and return-on-investment targets to judge meaningful AI progress.

These findings do not establish that AI investments have produced no returns. They indicate gaps in how respondents say those returns are calculated, reviewed, and used to assess progress.

Another 76% agreed that their own organizations publicly present themselves as more AI-mature than they actually are.

What the research covers

Avanade commissioned independent research firm Vanson Bourne to interview 3,600 business decision-makers across 11 markets in August and September 2026.

Respondents represented organizations with more than US$500 million in global annual revenue, spanning sectors including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, energy, and transport.

The APAC figures therefore describe this surveyed group. They should not be treated as findings for all Philippine businesses or smaller enterprises.

For business leaders evaluating AI programs, the report raises a practical question: beyond deploying tools, what measurable change is the investment intended to deliver?

The full report is available through Avanade’s official website.

Reader Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Avanade report called?

Build Beyond Limits: The AI Reality Report.

How many people participated?

There were 3,600 respondents globally, including 1,400 across APAC.

What does the 79% finding mean?

Those respondents believe too much of their organizations’ AI spending targets incremental improvements rather than transformational opportunities.

Does the research show that AI produces no financial returns?

No. It identifies gaps in formally calculating and reviewing returns, rather than proving that returns do not exist.

Does the study represent all Philippine businesses?

No. Respondents came from organizations with more than US$500 million in global annual revenue; the release does not provide a Philippine-specific breakdown.