AI Projects Not Paying Off? Keep at It, Says Uni Productivity Institute
The Register, Friday, October 30th, 2026
A University of Manchester report says AI gains lag because up-front costs come first and task-level gains do not scale to whole firms.
The Productivity Institute's report The AI Ambition Gap, commissioned by Bytes Technology Group, examines why growing AI adoption has not yet produced forecast productivity gains.
It gives two reasons: organizations spend heavily up front on retraining and reorganizing work, with payback coming later, and AI can speed individual tasks without raising productivity across a whole role or organization.
It cites developers using GitHub Copilot completing around 26 percent more tasks.
The report sets out actions for business leaders and policymakers, though researchers say there are no easy answers.