Shutterstock
GenAI has progressed at an astonishing pace over the last two and a half years. It began with a surge of exploration and hype in late 2022, followed by a wave of early adoption as tools like ChatGPT and enterprise copilots entered the daily workflows.
By early 2024, the focus shifted to ROI and use-case maturity, as businesses sought measurable value from their AI investments. As AI adoption matures, a key question emerges: Have early movers realized strong returns? The data suggests they have.
Among the companies that adopted AI early, 92% report positive returns on their investment. Those who measured their ROI, the average return stands at an impressive 41%. This success fueled further investment, with 81% of early adopters increasing spending on data infrastructure to strengthen their AI capabilities.
Large language models (LLMs) have experienced significant funding growth, with 78% of companies investing in this space.. Spending on supporting software has risen to 83%, while investment in AI-driven talent has reached 76%. These numbers are from Snowflake’s new report titled “The Radical ROI of Gen AI.”
With an online survey of over 3,300 organizations worldwide, Snowflake identified 1,900 early adopters for GenAI. The report highlights how enterprises that invested early in AI are integrating the technology into their operations, tracking measurable returns, and refining their strategies to maximize impact.
(hmorena/Shutterstock)
The report reveals that the top use cases for GenAI include IT operations (70%), cybersecurity (65%), customer service and support (56%), and software development (54%).
GenAI has also been influential in customer-facing functions. While adoption in sales remains relatively low at 38%, those using GenAI report substantial gains in revenue growth and forecast accuracy.
With 44% adoption, marketing teams report seeing higher engagement rates through personalized content generation. Customer service units (56% adoption) report improved satisfaction scores through AI-powered chatbots and knowledge management. Less tech-centric departments, such as HR, are also using more GenAI to “streamline everything from streamline everything from recruitment to performance management.”
Procurement is experiencing a major shift, with 76% of users seeing significant improvements, especially in analytics and contract management. In manufacturing, 79% report substantial benefits, including better demand forecasting and more efficient maintenance scheduling.
While GenAI’s success for early adopters has been promising, many organizations face tough strategic choices that would define their priorities and long-term approach. Around one in five (18%) believe GenAI would deliver the greatest impact in customer-facing projects, and that’s where they are investing the most.
A key challenge for businesses is managing unstructured data. While this data comprises 80-90% of enterprise data, only 11% of early adopters have more than half of their unstructured data ready for LLM applications.
(nikkimeel/Shutterstock)
The Chief Data Officers (CDOs) surveyed shared that unlocking reservoirs of unstructured data offers benefits, but they sometimes feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data. Organizations cite time-consuming management (55%), data quality issues (52%), and sensitivity concerns (50%) as key obstacles to unlocking data’s full potential.
Most organizations are adopting multimodal strategies, leveraging both commercial and open-source options. Model customization is now standard practice, with 96% of early adopters actively training, tuning, or augmenting their LLMs to optimize performance. AI agents are also in focus, with 72% of early adopters expecting autonomous agents to take over some tasks by the end of this year.
“The first offerings of autonomous agents are in the marketplace. Capabilities and use cases will only increase, and they’ll probably increase at the same rapid rate as gen AI has over the past 2 1⁄2 years, if not faster. Today’s early adopters are walking with gen AI today, and they’ll be better positioned to run with autonomous agents tomorrow. (Seriously, tomorrow.)”
According to Snowflake, tech companies have embraced GenAI faster and more extensively than any other industry, leveraging multiple models and deploying AI across various functions. While this aggressive approach has helped innovate and create new opportunities, the tech firms often struggle to prioritize use cases within their budgets and evaluate their impact effectively.
“The irony being, of course, that the industry with the greatest ability to spot the potential of gen AI ends up being slightly penalized for that deeper insight,” states the report. “Yet all told, the sector that brought us generative AI continues to be a trailblazer in its application.”
(TSViPhoto/Shutterstock)
The report underscores the importance of a strong data infrastructure for effective GenAI, and early adopters are aware of this. Four out of five (81%) of respondents shared that their organization plans on investing in cloud-based data warehousing. Investing in security and integrated analytics is also a top priority based on the Snowflake report.
In August 2024, Google released a report that also highlighted strong ROI for early adopters of GenAI. A key benefit for early adopters is that they are in a better position to reinvest, according to Google. They also have a quicker transition to production, and their early investment allows them to gain a competitive advantage that could give them a vital edge in the market.
Related Items
Gartner Warns 30% of GenAI Initiatives Will Be Abandoned by 2025
GenAI Adoption: Show Me the Numbers
dbt Labs Report Reveals How AI Is Boosting Data Budgets and Team Growth
