CTSH•CTSH•Cognizant’s study finds that Global 2000 companies with mature tech infrastructure and fundamentals-first AI investments outperform laggards by 31% on composite outcomes, yielding $1–$2 billion in annual returns. The study estimates $4.7 trillion in unrealized value and finds a 60% higher AI-deployment abandonment rate among companies with immature infrastructure.
Cognizant surveyed 1,100 senior leaders at Global 2000 firms and 100 startups across 10 industries to assess real-world AI outcomes. The research focused on infrastructure maturity, investment strategies, and actual business productivity gains to identify performance differentials.
Top-performing companies with mature infrastructure and a fundamentals-first AI approach achieve 31% higher composite outcomes than laggards, translating into $1–$2 billion in annual returns for a typical Global 2000 firm. Across all surveyed enterprises, the study puts total unrealized annual AI value at $4.7 trillion.
Organizations with immature technology foundations and broad, unfocused AI spending are 60% more likely to pause or abandon deployments. Firms with strong data foundations report 27% higher productivity gains, while only 19.9% rate on-premises compute as excellent.
High performers prioritize compute and data foundations, deploy focused investment strategies and engage external partners—72–76% of top-tier companies work with outside experts. Improving any of the 10 key infrastructure dimensions from needs-improvement to good or excellent boosts average productivity gains from 12.5% to 15.6%.
