The Future of AI in Business: Wharton’s Latest Findings on GenAI’s Expanding Use 

In 2024, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) reached a turning point. Companies shifted their attention from the initial excitement and curiosity to focusing on demonstrating its value and evaluating how well it performs in real-world scenarios.

The use of GenAI surged this year, with 72% of decision-makers reporting using GenAI once a week - up from 37% in 2023, according to a new report by the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. The increase in usage was highest in functions that lagged last year - Operations, Marketing, and HR. 

The report, “Growing Up: Navigating Gen AI’s Early Years,” is based on a survey of more than 800 enterprise decision-makers across the U.S. GBK Collective, a strategy and analytics consultancy, conducted research and analysis. The study aims to assess the current state of enterprises on their GenAI journey and explores the opportunities and challenges they face as adoption accelerates.

Last year’s survey showed that companies were still experimenting with GenAI and navigating the early challenges. While 78% of leaders expected GenAI to impact core functions, 57% anticipated a slowdown in GenAI spending. 

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This year’s report highlights a transformative shift - GenAI has surpassed expectations. Companies are reporting a 130% increase in AI spending since last year. More than half (55%) of companies are now actively using GenAI across business functions, such as coding and data analysis. 

While IT continues to lead in AI usage, other departments are rapidly closing the gap. In marketing and sales, AI adoption surged from 20% in 2023 to an impressive 62% in 2024.

“Generative AI has rapidly evolved from a tool of experimentation to a core driver of business transformation,” said Stefano Puntoni, Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School and Co-Director of AI at Wharton. 

“Companies are no longer just exploring AI’s potential—they are embedding it into their strategies to scale growth, streamline operations, and enhance decision-making. The novelty phase is over. We’re now starting to see the integration of AI into various business processes, as companies look to unlock its long-term value across the enterprise.”

The Wharton study also highlights a preference for companies to have their GenAI strategy led internally and not by consultants. To keep their GenAI strategy responsibilities in-house, companies are adapting by expanding teams. 

Nearly half of organizations are hiring Chief AI Officers (CAIOs) to lead strategic initiatives, with 21% already having this role in place. The report did not clarify whether the rise of the CAIO role is replacing or evolving from the Chief Data Officer (CDO) position.

The report's findings also reflect a change in mindset toward GenAI, with 90% of leaders in 2024 agreeing that AI enhances employee skills, up from 80% in 2023. Concerns about AI replacing human skills have also decreased slightly compared to last year. 

“There’s a clear shift in mindset,” said Puntoni. “Leaders are increasingly viewing AI as a tool to augment employee capabilities rather than replace them, with a focus on enhancing productivity and improving work quality.”

The major challenges to GenAI adoption include concerns about privacy, accuracy, and ethics. These concerns have slightly lessened compared to last year. Companies are now more willing to experiment with AI while understanding some of the limitations of GenAI, such as hallucinations.  However, as organizations scale AI across enterprises, new challenges in governance and integration have emerged, such as managing seamless integration with existing systems.

The AI landscape continues to evolve rapidly, making it challenging to predict what will happen in the future. The Wharton report suggests that companies will continue to experiment with AI to figure out how it works best for them. 

To fully unlock AI’s potential, the report recommends that enterprises establish clear usage policies and guidelines. This is more of an issue for larger companies, with greater than $2B in revenue. They tend to have far more restrictions than smaller companies. Only 15% of $2B+ annual 
revenue enterprises allow GenAI use without any restrictions. 

According to Puntoni, GenAI adoption will likely continue, though it may slow down. This could create opportunities for vendors to specialize in specific niches and for complementary innovation to thrive. As technology evolves, companies will need to stay agile and adapt to emerging opportunities to remain competitive.