Your CFO is asking where the return on AI is
Xavier Vallée, Founder, Sapionic
Posted ahead of Xavier’s masterclass at the CIO Inspired Summit UK North on Wednesday 30 September 2026.
Your CFO is asking where the return on AI is.
90% of CEOs expect measurable returns from AI this year. Yet, only 6% of organisations get 5% or more of their EBIT from it.
So where did the money go? Copilot for everyone. An agent for every task. Thirty pilots. No clear business case or benefit realisation frameworks.
Rolling out Copilot and expecting AI transformation is like rolling out Outlook and expecting digital transformation.
The current advice is to redesign the workflow. Close. Not quite. If you simply “automate the workflow” the gains will be 5% to 20% with a huge loss in accuracy.
A better alternative is to remember that a workflow is a sequence of decisions. The enquiry is read so a decision can be made. The data is gathered so a decision can be made.
Get the decisions right and the workflow redesigns itself. That is where the value creation opportunity sits.
It’s either a 20% gain or a 5000% one. You decide.
On Wednesday, at the CIO Inspired Summit UK North, I will walk through the decision-centric framework that I created for Tour Partner Group: the approach, the architecture and the questions to ask. The results speak for themselves.
Which decision in your business costs the most when it is made slowly?