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Designing AI for 10x Business Impact, Not 10% Cost Savings

How IBM, Accenture, and BCG say 10x-efficient enterprises really work—data strategy, agents, and where your next AI dollar should go.

Author

Steve Luu
November 21, 2025 • Estimated Read Time: 8 minutes

In partnership with

Welcome back,

This week we analyze how the AI leading companies are operating at 10x efficiency. The focus areas are your data, your processes, and AI making decisions.

We dive into reports from IBM, Accenture, BCG, and others to bring you the unvarnished truth about where enterprise AI is heading.

Let’s dive in 🤖

Source: IBM

The GPTLDR

IBM surveyed 1,700 Chief Data Officers and found a striking disconnect: 92% say they must focus on business outcomes to succeed, but only 29% have clear measures to determine the business value of data-driven outcomes.

The Key Message? Data shouldn’t solely be an IT problem and should be a cornerstone to your AI strategy. Organizations that tap into valuable data with a clear vision deliver better business results.

The Details

  • Data Confidence: Only 26% of Chief Digital Officers (CDO) are confident their data capabilities can support new AI-enabled revenue streams.

  • Strategic Integration: 81% of CDOs now say their data strategy is integrated with technology roadmap and infrastructure investments, up from just 52% in 2023.

  • Agent Governance: 83% of CDOs say the potential benefits of deploying AI agents outweigh the risks, and 77% are comfortable with their organization relying on outcomes from AI agents.

  • Organizational Speed: 80% of CDOs say data democratization helps their organization move faster.

What Matters

The leaders delivering higher ROI on AI investments share three characteristics:

  1. Can articulate how data drives business outcomes.

  2. Have clear value metrics.

  3. Giving AI agents fast-track access to enterprise data.

Source: Accenture

The GPTLDR

Accenture's report challenges C-suite to pursue bolder AI strategies, to look past 10% cost savings and seek opportunities to create 10x value creation and complete workflow re-imagination.

The Details

  • New Economic Model: Agentic AI is a new type of capital that allows businesses to re-think how they balance labor, resources, and assets in their economic equation.

  • Implementation Timeline: By 2030, winners will have fully embraced first-generation agentic solutions, while leaders will be on the path to become "agentic enterprises" where digital labor autonomously plans, acts and coordinates across functions.

  • Performance Metrics: Top agentic opportunities deliver dramatic results:

    • Customer acquisition costs reduced by up to 30%

    • Processing time reduced by 90% for complex documents

    • 64% of long-tail negotiations closed without human intervention

  • Investment Strategy: Accenture identifies three tiers:

    • Strategic Bets (new business models, 10x gains)

    • Table Stakes (material value but not differentiating), and;

    • Agentic Automation (continuous improvement)

What Matters

  • Leaders are redesigning entire value streams while laggards are automating tasks. If your board isn't discussing how agents will reshape your industry's profit pools, schedule an emergency session.

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Source: BCG

The GPTLDR

According to BCG’s analysis, companies increasing AI adoption and priorities saw their stocks outperform the market by 29% with 4x improvement in total shareholder return. The message: move now or become the Blockbuster of your category.

The Details

  • Investment Acceleration: Retail jumped from lagging in AI investment to becoming a top-three industry raising spending, with 51% of retailers increasing AI budgets.

  • Platform Evolution: OpenAI integrated checkout directly into ChatGPT, while Google Shopping and Perplexity are launching AI-powered commerce features. The purchase funnel is being rewritten in real-time.

  • Operational Impact: AI agents are delivering:

    • 30% efficiency in marketing production costs

    • 10% higher click-through rates

    • 15% conversion gains for retailers with owned agents

    • 3-6% gross profit lift through AI-powered merchandising

  • Organizational Structure: Operating models are shifting from specialist roles to broader scopes with AI filling knowledge gaps, from function-led hierarchies to flat organizations with agents driving execution.

What Matters

  • BCG identifies a critical strategic choice: play the "destination game" (drive customers to owned channels) or the "evaluation game" (get recommended by agents). There's no middle ground. Organizations can unlock tech efficiencies through AI that partially fund further AI investments, creating a self-reinforcing cycle. The suggestino? Start redirecting 20% of tech spend to AI capabilities.

📚 Interesting Reads

 ➜ Until Next Week

We're watching a real-time IQ test of corporate leadership. One group sees AI agents as the biggest opportunity since the internet. The other sees them as fancy chatbots. The winners aren't the ones with the best models or the biggest budgets. They're the ones willing to let AI agents actually run things while their competitors debate governance frameworks.

Stay curious,

—The GPTLDR Team

AI, simplified for Decision Makers.