The AI financial black hole is getting bigger
‘AI is an enabler, not an outcome’
There’s no denying it, AI is disrupting organisations all over the world. The pace of change is something not seen before and the transition from Chatbots to Agentic feels like it was overnight. Benchmarking on model performance is yesterday’s news, and releasing an open-source project that goes viral leads to being hired by OpenAI. All in a few weeks work.
It’s also true to say that this disruption feels organic, if a little tactical, and lacks the clear strategies that organisations had the luxury of planning, proving and executing against before.
That can be forgiven as, week on week, something new and powerful gets released by OpenAI, Anthropic , Google Cloud , Microsoft , DeepSeek AI which provides endless possibilities.
But let’s be clear, technology evolutions of this magnitude should still be viewed as an enabler for outcomes, not the outcome itself, and the risk of ‘technical possibilities’ overriding ‘value based outcomes’ in the boardroom is real.
AI and Value should be one and all, never separate, yet in 2026 if the behaviours continue as we’ve seen in the last 2 years, billions of capital will be lost, never to be seen again.
The causality between AI application and the balance sheet must be understood, before, during and after AI implementation.
‘$2.5tn on AI in 2026, $3.3tn in 2027’
Gartner’s timely article released in January 2026 forecasts AI spending to grow 44% in 2026 ($1.7tn 2025), and, as Chief Forecaster John Lovelock correctly states “The improved predictability of ROI must occur before AI can truly be scaled up by the enterprise.”
Reconciling this analysis with the recent Deloitte article (October 2025)which estimated 6% in year returns from AI investments and just 10% of organisations saying they are seeing significant ROI from Agentic investments, the black hole is growing.
‘Causality between AI Capital Investment & Returns must be clearer’
Step forward the CFOs & CIOs. The economics people. A mandate to deliver innovation and solutions, but the guardians of the balance sheets.
FernAI is launching in 2026 as an enabler & solution to create more predictability in AI Value. Quantifiable Intelligence
It works alongside technical enablers, both on the same team and with the same mission but knowing its objective. It empowers adoption and closes the gap between the Application of AI and the benefits realised by organisations.
Setting companies off on the right path in the ideation & prioritisation phase through Fern Imagine which brings ideas to life against a matrix of Value / Complexity / Dependancies.
Justifying scale or pivot during the experimentation phase through Fern Pilot, where FernAI sets up controlled environments to track Value proof alongside engineering disciplines focused on technical and model power.
And finally providing perpetual Value Tracking & Attribution through the fully Agentic Fern Koru Engine, linking the causality between AI Implementations and balance sheet effect.
Kudos to Gartner who have stepped up the ROI agenda, and as the World Authority on AI they have a responsibility to bring people back to reality.
‘AI should still be top of the CEO agenda, but Value can’t be in AOB’
There is probably some alignment to the infamous Hare & Tortoise fable but not exactly. CEOs are worried about being ‘left behind’, and nor should the pace of change slow, but FernAI believes there is a more powerful formula as we go into 2026. AI as an enabler, Value & Attribution tracked and an increased focus on up-skilling & AI literacy through partners such as myAIcademy . This will create more financial predictability and close the Causality Gap.
