Key findings from our 2025 enterprise AI adoption report

Optimism around AI is increasing, yet nearly two out of three C-suite executives report that generative AI adoption has sparked division within their organizations — 42% state that it’s tearing their companies apart.

Success lies in a people-first approach. Companies that are getting it right are appointing AI champions, making strategic investments, and developing a comprehensive AI strategy.

For our 2025 report, Generative AI adoption in the enterprise, we surveyed a diverse group of 1,600 knowledge workers actively using AI in the workplace — including 800 C-suite executives and 800 employees across the US. The research was conducted in partnership with research group Workplace Intelligence to provide a deeper understanding of the opportunities and barriers to adoption in the enterprise.

Optimism around AI is at an all-time high

Employees and the C-suite are both optimistic about AI. Enterprises making significant, strategic investments and taking a company-wide approach to becoming AI-first are seeing the most success.

These companies use AI tools for a wide range of use cases, with 88% of employees and 97% of executives reporting benefitting from generative AI. This gives both groups more time to focus on strategy, make data-driven decisions faster, and manage or collaborate with colleagues, among other benefits.

Qualcomm, a leader in enabling intelligent processing, is one company that has rolled out AI solutions to hundreds of users across departments including marketing, comms, legal, product, analytics, sales, L&D, and HR. By partnering with Writer, they’ve vetted over 25 unique use cases and defined 70 different workflows, saving around 2,400 hours across all users each month.

Despite clear benefits, enterprise leaders report division and power struggles from AI adoption

While executives are highly optimistic about the future business impact of AI, 42% say the process of adopting generative AI is tearing their company apart. Most enterprises are still facing challenges with organizational alignment and adoption.

72% of the C-suite say their company has faced at least one challenge on their journey to AI adoption. Some of these barriers include power struggles, conflicts, silos, and even sabotage — as the transformative potential of AI challenges existing power dynamics and workflows.

Lack of internal alignment

Employees and executives aren’t seeing eye-to-eye regarding AI implementation. For example, only 45% of employees — compared to 75% of the C-suite — believe their organization has successfully adopted and used generative AI over the past year.

Tension between IT and users

Our research also identified misalignment between IT departments and other company areas. Around two-thirds of the C-suite (68%) report that generative AI has created tension or division between IT teams and other business areas. Moreover, 72% of executives say their company develops AI applications in a silo.

Unlike past technologies, generative AI solutions need to be grounded in a deep understanding of business needs and workflows. In the most successful organizations, IT collaborates across the business to drive value — but that’s unfortunately not the reality everywhere.

36% of the C-suite report IT teams not delivering real value regarding generative AI, and 49% say employees have to figure out generative AI on their own. This disconnect leads to sabotage and power struggles.

Disconnect between workers and employers

Adopting AI without a solid strategy, cross-department involvement, and clear communication does more harm than good. Because of fears about AI replacing jobs and concerns about the quality of AI tools, 41% of Millennial and Gen Z employees admit they’re sabotaging their company’s AI strategy. Some by refusing to use AI tools or outputs altogether.

Even when employees are excited to use AI, many are unhappy with the tools their employers are providing. This results in 35% of employees paying out-of-pocket for the generative AI tools they use at work. Not only is this a significant cost burden to employees, but it could also create a security risk for organizations.

A strategic investment is needed to yield greater ROI

One of the most important steps an organization can take is simply putting a generative AI strategy in place — it’s the top driver of successful AI adoption and implementation. At companies without a formal AI strategy, only 37% of executives report being very successful at adopting and implementing AI, compared to 80% at companies with a strategy.

Creating a plan is the first step, but your investment level can truly determine your success. Enterprises making large, strategic investments are outperforming peers. There’s a 40 percentage-point gap in success rates between companies that invest the most in AI and those that invest the least. While not every organization can afford to invest millions, it’s worth assessing whether your company invests enough resources to achieve the desired ROI.

Companies achieving nirvana levels of ROI are out there, but they’re doing AI differently than everyone else. Organizations that want to achieve a similar high ROI need collaboration across the board and structured methods to capture and integrate the tacit knowledge of subject matter experts.

Vizient, the leader in healthcare performance improvement, is one of those high-performing companies. They partnered with Writer and saw four times the estimated ROI, with ~$700,000 saved in their first year. Part of their success is due to identifying AI champions — AI power-users from different departments who inspire others in the company to use AI. They help increase adoption and collaboration rates.

When enterprises neglect cross-functional collaboration and change management during the adoption process, issues can arise.

AI champions are a necessary, but untapped, resource

One way enterprises dispel some of the tension and power balances is by empowering AI champions. These individuals can help with cross-functional adoption and collaboration.

Over three-quarters (77%) of employees using AI already self-identify as AI champions or see the potential to become one within their organization. This suggests that when employees engage with the right AI tools, they often become enthusiastic advocates of the technology and are happy to inspire others.

Employees who use Writer are nearly twice as likely to be AI champions  than those who don’t. For example, Salesforce has empowered 50 champions across the organization to build apps for their mission-critical workflows. They do so using AI Studio, our suite of development tools — including no-code options, Python development framework, and APIs, making it easy for anyone to build and deploy AI apps and workflows.

“The Writer team really acts as strategic advisors for us. They are instrumental in helping us achieve high adoption rates and develop internal AI capabilities,” says Annemaria Nicholson, senior manager of AI and content ops at Salesforce. “As a result, our users feel empowered to use Writer and AI Studio every day.”

Companies want partners, not just vendors

Enterprises expect more from vendors than just selling software and tools. 98% of the C-suite believe vendors should help set the vision for AI at work. But most vendors are falling short, with 94% of executives reporting that they’re not completely satisfied.

Evaluate vendors based on factors like their technical architecture and data privacy while  also investigating how tight-knit of a strategic partnership they offer.

As the leader in enterprise generative AI, Writer has helped implement AI at the world’s top companies — like Salesforce, Mars, Accenture, Prudential, and more — with a human-centric approach. We bring customers an elite, cross-functional, purpose-built team to identify their highest-value use cases and deliver ROI at scale, ultimately helping you craft your own AI strategy. Keep in mind that companies without a formal AI strategy report only 37% success in adopting and implementing AI, compared to 80% success at companies with a well-defined strategy.

Our fully integrated platform gives enterprises a unified hub to align their entire organization around AI-powered work. This means business users and IT can work together to develop applications and agents that meet business needs, drive adoption, and deliver ROI.

Download the full 2025 enterprise AI adoption report

This blog post is just a glimpse into the challenges enterprises face with AI adoption and the success other organizations are achieving. Comprehensive, organization-wide adoption of AI requires companies to reinvent their mission-critical workflows from the ground up. Without the right tools or partners, this can cause internal chaos. Ultimately,  companies that develop well-defined AI strategies, invest resources in proper change management, and ensure collaboration among all departments will shape the future of enterprise AI.

If you’re excited and optimistic about AI, don’t miss the opportunity to drive real growth and innovation for your company rather than creating power struggles and tensions. Discover the secrets of successful AI adoption and the key obstacles to avoid by downloading the full 2025 enterprise AI adoption report.