ST. LOUIS, MO, Annual research report covering AI adoption across mid-market and enterprise companies finds a widening gap between AI Leaders and AI Bystanders.
ST. LOUIS, MO, January 14, 2026, Abstrakt Solutions today published its second annual AI Maturity Benchmark Report, drawing on the firm's own production deployment experience and market research.
Key findings include:
- Only 14% of companies surveyed have a written AI strategy with executive-level accountability
- AI Leaders (top quartile) have implemented an average of 7 production AI use cases, compared to 0.8 for AI Bystanders (bottom quartile)
- The single strongest predictor of AI ROI is data foundation maturity, not size of AI budget
- 62% of companies report that their first production AI deployment took longer than expected, with the most common cause being inadequate evaluation methodology
The report is available as a free download from abstraktsolutions.com/resources, alongside the AI Maturity Quiz, a 50-question diagnostic that maps respondents to one of five maturity tiers.
"The gap between AI Leaders and AI Bystanders is widening," said our VP of AI Practice. "Companies that built a solid foundation in 2024 are now compounding their advantage. The good news is that the gap is closeable, but it requires honest assessment and disciplined execution, not more pilots."
"The gap between AI Leaders and AI Bystanders is widening. Companies that built a solid foundation in 2024 are now compounding their advantage."