The report is unequivocal: organisations are moving quickly into broader deployment, with 22% now embedding AI across the business in the ‘driving adoption’ phase. At the same time, 76% report experiencing meaningful business value. However, a much smaller proportion can demonstrate established ROI, highlighting a widening gap between activity and financial outcomes.For family businesses, this dynamic is particularly relevant. Many are already using AI across marketing, operations and customer insight, but fewer have translated that into consistent, measurable performance improvement. The shift now is from using AI to making it pay. That requires a different mindset, one that aligns investment, governance and leadership around value creation rather than experimentation.
Family business leadership in the AI era
