Salesforce Study Of 2,025 AI Leaders: First To Deploy Is Not First To ROI
Salesforce published a post on its own newsroom on August 27, 2026 covering its State of Agentic AI in the Enterprise study. Everything below comes from that post.
Transcript
Salesforce surveyed two thousand twenty five agentic AI leaders. Deploying first did not mean getting returns first.
Salesforce says companies deploying agents reached meaningful return in about eight months. Pace was not predictive of success. Operational readiness was.
Professional services and supply chain firms deploy least, yet reported the fastest returns, within six point five months. High tech reported ten point one months.
Only thirty one percent unified their data before launching. Those who did reported returns in seven point three months, versus eight point eight.
Salesforce ran this double blind survey across twenty countries. All outcome numbers, including time to return, are self reported by the companies surveyed.
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Sources
Every claim in this video comes from the top ranking coverage of this topic. The claims and where each one came from:
- Double-blind survey of 2,025 agentic AI decision makers across 20 countries on five continents, fielded May 14 to 28, 2026.(Salesforce's official announcement, New Study of 2,025 Agentic AI Leaders: First To Launch Isn't Fastest to ROI, published August 27, 2026)
- Being first to deploy does not mean being first to returns. Operational factors were most predictive of success, not pace.(Salesforce's official announcement, New Study of 2,025 Agentic AI Leaders: First To Launch Isn't Fastest to ROI, published August 27, 2026)
- Companies that deploy AI agents hit meaningful ROI in about eight months on average, with a 53% employee adoption rate and a 29% average lift in customer satisfaction.(Salesforce's official announcement, New Study of 2,025 Agentic AI Leaders: First To Launch Isn't Fastest to ROI, published August 27, 2026)
- Professional & Business Services and Supply Chain & Logistics have two of the smallest shares of companies at full deployment, yet reached meaningful ROI the fastest, within 6.5 months.(Salesforce's official announcement, New Study of 2,025 Agentic AI Leaders: First To Launch Isn't Fastest to ROI, published August 27, 2026)
- High Tech is one of the biggest deployers but posts one of the slowest times to ROI at 10.1 months.(Salesforce's official announcement, New Study of 2,025 Agentic AI Leaders: First To Launch Isn't Fastest to ROI, published August 27, 2026)
- Only 31% of deployers fully unified their data before launching agents. The other 69% were still integrating sources, working around gaps, or operating on fragmented data.(Salesforce's official announcement, New Study of 2,025 Agentic AI Leaders: First To Launch Isn't Fastest to ROI, published August 27, 2026)
- Organizations that unified relevant data before deploying reached meaningful ROI sooner: 7.3 months versus 8.8 months for those who deployed first and fixed data later.(Salesforce's official announcement, New Study of 2,025 Agentic AI Leaders: First To Launch Isn't Fastest to ROI, published August 27, 2026)
- All outcome metrics, including time to ROI and the 29% customer-satisfaction lift, are self-reported.(Salesforce's official announcement, New Study of 2,025 Agentic AI Leaders: First To Launch Isn't Fastest to ROI, published August 27, 2026)