AI ROI Isn't Just Dollars: How To Measure Intangible Wins

Forbes

2 days ago

Companies are investing millions in AI, but the biggest returns might be faster decisions, happier ... More teams and smarter workflows.
Enterprises are pouring billions into AI. Retail companies alone plan to spend $33.2 million annually on AI initiatives, according to a 2025 IBM survey. But while some are already reporting wins — and others are still waiting for returns — industry experts say too many are asking the wrong question: Is AI making us richer? Instead, they say, the better question might be: Is it making us better?
That shift in mindset is becoming essential today. Because, as more businesses deploy AI across their operations, the most valuable results aren't always the ones that show up in quarterly earnings. Sometimes the clearest wins come in faster decisions, smarter workflows and more satisfied employees.
It's only natural for companies to prioritize financial gains when measuring the ROI on their AI investments. But according to experts like Adrienne Uthe, managing principal at Kronus Intelligence Group, that's not all that matters.
'Organizations can simply move much faster than ever before. Everyone can develop their own MVPs while solving problems at unprecedented speed. Junior workers gain more experience in a short period thanks to a healthy collaboration with their AI-driven sidekicks,' Uthe told me in an interview.
Her argument is that like no other time in human history, professionals now have tools at their disposal that could make them more productive than ever. And there's real-world proof to support Uthe's claims. Consider the National Bank of Australia that, since it began using Microsoft 365 copilot, has drastically reduced the time spent on analyzing millions of security event logs.
This increased efficiency has freed up valuable time for the company's engineers who can now apply their expertise to other pressing matters. The trend also aligns with a 2024 survey by PwC, which revealed over 80% of employees believe that the continuous use of generative AI tools will make them more efficient at work.
And it's not just about doing more work faster. Companies like Elvee — which uses AI to help contact center agencies address employee attrition, retain top performers and recapture revenue — have also been at the backend of enabling employee performance with AI. In one particular example, Raz Dar, founder and CEO of Elvee, noted how their platform helped a manager notice that a top-performing contact center agent was quietly planning to quit.
'On the surface, it looked like everything was fine. The employee was a top performer. But the manager was shocked to see that the system showed the employee was at a high risk of leaving,' Dar said excitedly.
The early alert gave the company time to intervene, rework the agent's schedule, and keep a key team member. No revenue changed hands, but something just as valuable happened: culture was preserved. And that, more than any dashboard metric, is what real AI ROI can look like.
For Dar, this is another real-world pointer to the intangible but really powerful benefits of AI. He calls it 'culture-shaping AI,' emphasizing AI's role in helping to set the tone for employee performance and motivation across organizations.
As more businesses begin to consider the impact of AI on their daily operations, it makes sense to spotlight the parameters to judge the value of the returns. When CEOs aren't thinking about monetary gains, they can consider other crucial things like employee satisfaction, customer feedback and even ethical concerns.
'Companies should track decision quality through accuracy rates, speed improvements, and confidence levels across key business processes. The best approach measures decision reversal rates and compares predicted versus actual outcomes. Focus on simple metrics that show whether AI-influenced decisions are actually better decisions,' said Brig Barker, managing principal at Kronus Intelligence Group.
Uthe added that companies should focus on three areas: how fast decisions get made, how well information flows through the organization and how quickly teams can respond to market changes. 'If your workers say they enjoy greater satisfaction working with AI than before when they worked with it, then it means you're doing something right.'
But employees aren't the only stakeholders AI affects. Customers matter, too, in the grand scheme of measuring AI ROI.
How the users of an AI-powered product perceive it is crucial in determining whether it deserves to remain available or get pulled off the market. Seasoned customer experience expert Shep Hyken claims that more customers are feeling relaxed with the use of AI in service delivery. For instance, AI chatbots have become more popular in the last few years, enabling businesses to handle large volumes of customer complaints at a quicker pace than human support staff.
In fact, the momentum of AI-powered customer support is so high that Hyken's annual CX survey showed 63% of U.S. customers expect more companies to adopt AI chatbots and other forms of automated customer support. In 2021, only 21% of respondents shared this sentiment.
While the story of Klarna — which replaced 700 roles with AI chatbots in 2024 but quietly started rehiring for the same roles this year because its customers preferred human support — may cast a shadow over Hyken's claims, the forecast for AI in customer support looks good. Still, for companies whose clients don't speak highly of their AI deployment, it might be time to rethink their strategy and try again.
AI ROI isn't just about cost savings or new revenue streams. It's about what changes — and improves — when AI becomes part of how a company works. While financial return may be the headline metric, especially when companies have poured significant capital into AI, it's not the only one that matters. Businesses must first decide why they're investing in AI — and only then decide what success actually looks like.
If your AI investments end up making your employees work better and feel more satisfied, or they make your customers happier, or they make you, as a business leader, more efficient, then that's certainly a win. And as Dar said, 'these intangible wins often have tangible impact, even on finance. That's a win-win situation.'
Uthe prescribes that companies should focus on decision speed, execution velocity and how fast teams can turn ideas into reality. She added that they must also track the time from problem identification to solution deployment, measure how AI amplifies their best people's capabilities and spread that performance across the organization. 'The goal,' she said 'should be to increase organizational acceleration.'
Dar cautioned that replacing human agents with AI can backfire if you're not careful, explaining that many employees get spooked when they hear their company is piloting AI. But ironically, he noted that the best AI models need those same employees to train the system and handle the nuanced, emotional conversations AI can't. 'Retention is key if you want your AI to succeed,' he said.