While our previous article focused on ROI measurement for artificial intelligence-based SaaS technologies, this updated contribution presents an evolved perspective: companies must complement the accuracy of traditional ROI calculations with a multilevel strategic vision. This approach is no longer an option, but a competitive imperative in the digital ecosystem of 2025.
The reality is well established: evaluating AI investments solely through traditional ROI metrics is inadequate and short-sighted. Organizations that limit themselves to this approach are already losing ground to competitors with a more strategic vision.
"Companies that fail to look beyond immediate ROI are not simply missing transformative opportunities, they are actively undermining their future relevance," says Accenture Chief AI Officer Sarah Chen, recently interviewed at the World Economic Forum 2025 [1]. "It's not about abandoning ROI, it's about integrating it into a more sophisticated evaluation framework."
The most recent studies in behavioral economics by the Harvard Business Review (March 2025) confirmed that organizations still tend to favor immediate benefits over investments with potentially exponential but more distributed returns over time [2]. This cognitive trap has become particularly dangerous in the era of generative AI, where the most significant competitive advantages often emerge only after initial phases of apparent limited returns.
AI adoption driven solely by ROI inevitably leads only to incremental improvements. The McKinsey Global Institute's "AI Investment Strategies 2025" report shows that leading companies have adopted a "70-20-10" approach: 70 percent of AI investments for optimizations with predictable ROI, 20 percent for medium-term strategic innovations, and 10 percent for potentially revolutionary explorations [3]. This balance has become essential to maintain competitiveness in increasingly volatile markets.
Traditional systems continue to perpetuate information silos that stifle innovation. According to a February 2025 MIT Technology Review study, today's AI platforms not only break down these barriers, but actively create new models of human-machine collaboration that generate exponential value [4]. Most advanced investment evaluations now include specific indicators of "collaborative intelligence" that measure this transformative potential.
In an environment of increasing unpredictability, the Deloitte AI Resilience Report 2025 highlights how leading organizations value AI not only for its efficiency under normal conditions, but for its ability to adapt quickly to disruptive scenarios [5]. AI-based stress analysis has become a standard for assessing organizational resilience. Companies that ignore this dimension in their assessments are drastically underestimating the strategic value of AI.
The economies of 2025 function as hyper-connected ecosystems. Forrester's research "AI-Driven Business Ecosystems" (April 2025) shows that AI solutions not only generate value within the organization, but redefine the entire network of relationships with customers, suppliers and partners [6]. New evaluation frameworks include "network effect" metrics that quantify these systemic benefits often ignored in traditional analyses.
Market leaders have definitely abandoned the purely quantitative approach in favor of more comprehensive methodologies that integrate:
"Companies that rely only on traditional ROI analysis no longer even see the tip of the iceberg of the value of AI," says Dr. Marcus Lee, CTO of Novartis Digital, authoritatively. "We are seeing a complete redefinition of entire industries driven by organizations that have adopted more sophisticated evaluation frameworks." [10]
The paradox persists but has been redefined: to gain support for ambitious AI initiatives, a compelling business case is still required, but the most transformative benefits continue to fully manifest only after implementation. The Bain & Company study "AI Value Realization 2025" documents how cutting-edge organizations have evolved the structured portfolio approach [11]:
The benefits of AI now manifest themselves in interconnected transformative cycles, rather than in linear steps, as highlighted by the IBM Institute for Business Value report "AI Transformation Cycles" (March 2025) [12]:
Maturity in AI adoption in 2025 is measured by the ability to manage these three cycles simultaneously, rather than progressing linearly from one to the other.
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The organizations that are dominating AI adoption in 2025 are not simply those with the most advanced technologies, but those that have developed superior capabilities for strategic investment orchestration.
The debate is no longer between financial metrics and strategic considerations, but between organizations that have developed integrated evaluation frameworks and those that are rapidly losing competitive relevance.
This approach requires a new kind of leadership: the ability to balance analytical rigor and transformative vision, systematic thinking and decision agility, focus on immediate results and long-term planning.
As Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson recently observed at the MIT AI Summit 2025: "AI is no longer just a tool to be evaluated, but a strategic partner in redefining the very future of the organization. Our evaluation methodologies must evolve accordingly." [13]
The profile of the winners in the era of AI 2.0 is now clear: these are the organizations that have developed the ability to evaluate technology investments not just as costs and benefits, but as catalysts for transformation in an ever-evolving digital ecosystem.
[1] World Economic Forum, "AI Investment Strategies Panel," Davos 2025, January 2025.
[2] Kahneman, D., et al, "Temporal Discounting in Corporate AI Investments," Harvard Business Review, March 2025.
[3] McKinsey Global Institute, "AI Investment Strategies 2025," April 2025.
[4] MIT Technology Review, "The New Era of Human-AI Collaboration," February 2025.
[5] Deloitte, "AI Resilience Report 2025," March 2025.
[6] Forrester Research, "AI-Driven Business Ecosystems," April 2025.
[7] Gartner, "Future of AI Investment Report 2025," March 2025.
[8] Boston Consulting Group, "Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI 2.0," February 2025.
[9] PwC Strategy&, "Early AI Opportunity Identification and Market Growth," January 2025.
[10] Lee, M., "Beyond Optimization: AI as Strategic Partner," Digital Pharma Summit, March 2025.
[11] Bain & Company, "AI Value Realization 2025," April 2025.
[12] IBM Institute for Business Value, "AI Transformation Cycles," March 2025.
[13] Brynjolfsson, E., "AI as Strategic Partner," MIT AI Summit, April 2025.
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