The CIO strategy for AI today is a tale of competing agendas: quick-win productivity enhancements on the one hand, and game-changing long-term innovations on the other. According to a recent survey from IBM, many IT leaders appear to be favoring one approach at the risk of missing out on the other. And while organizations have begun to see ROI on AI implementations, those focused on innovation don’t expect to see positive financial results from AI projects anytime soon, IBM found. Nearly half of the more than 2,400 IT decision-makers surveyed say their AI projects have achieved positive ROI, according to the survey results. However, three-quarters of those who haven’t yet found a positive ROI don’t expect it to happen within the next year. The survey shows a significant split in approaches to AI investment, with some companies focused on quick ROI by deploying off-the-shelf, easy-to-implement AI tools, and others investing in innovative AI projects that they hope will give them major competitive advantages down the line, observers suggest. When asked about their motivations for deploying AI, the survey respondents were split along three lines: 28% said ROI was their primary focus, 31% said innovation was most important, and 41% said ROI and innovation were equal drivers of their AI spending. Manish Goyal, vice president, senior partner, and global AI and analytics leader at IBM Consulting, notes that, while short-term gains are attractive, the power of AI is in using it to create competitive advantages, such as deploying new products and services, creating new revenue streams, or “delighting” customers. “Companies need to find a balance between short-term AI wins and making longer-term investments that can scale across the company and capture the full potential of what the technology can deliver,” Goyal says. “The real advantage of AI lies in its ability to drive significant and sustained innovation and efficiency improvements over time, beyond just immediate financial returns.”