Global investment in AI is skyrocketing and will continue to grow rapidly, with some predicting that global AI investment will exceed $1 trillion USD in 2026.
However, this rapid rise in investment is causing some concern amongst global tech leaders, a new report released earlier today by AI-native global digital transformation company GFT Technologies has found.
The GFT report surveys the opinions of nearly 1000 CTOs and CIOs of companies with a minimum annual revenue of $500M+ from around the world about their feelings towards AI and its integration in their workplaces.
The ROI of massive investments into AI is a particularly prominent concern amongst tech specialists.
The report found that 44% of those surveyed were either “very” or “extremely” concerned that global investment in AI may be outgrowing the business value it can feasibly deliver, with 89% of those surveyed expressing some kind of concern.
This concern appears well-founded; a Gartner survey, published in September 2026, of over 1000 $50M+ companies found that only 22% of organizations had “successfully scaled AI across multiple business units or adopted an AI-first approach”, according to the organizations’ functional leaders.
85% of those leaders also said, however, that their organizations’ AI budgets would increase in 2026 compared to 2025.
This imbalance inevitably leads to operational failures as new AI programs are integrated into legacy systems not properly equipped to deal with the new technology; 84% of respondents said they had scrapped at least one AI initiative because of legacy system constraints.
The result: CIOs and CTOs who fear that they will shoulder the responsibility for these kinds of failures.
89% relayed being concerned that a wrong workforce decision made while scaling AI could endanger their job position. 43% of that number reported being “very” or “extremely” concerned.
The U.S. is most concerned
Although concerns about the pace of AI adoption are a worldwide phenomenon, U.S. leaders are feeling particularly affected. Of the $1 trillion USD invested globally in AI, more than 50% ($581 billion USD) is invested in the U.S.
These global trends are reflected in the data. According to GFT, 92.1% of U.S. CIOs and CTOs surveyed are concerned that AI investment is outpacing real value, the highest of any region, compared with only 80.6% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
That increased worry extends to layoffs; 47.0% of U.S. participants in the study are reportedly very or extremely concerned that a wrong AI workforce decision could cost them their own job, above the 42.9% global figure.
“U.S. technology leaders are carrying more pressure than most, over whether AI is delivering real value, workforce trust, and their own personal exposure if something goes wrong. With so much AI investment concentrated in the U.S., the resulting scrutiny makes it all the more important to recognize that the foundation underneath AI, from infrastructure and governance to the right talent, matters as much as the technology itself,” Rishi Chohan, CEO of GFT Technologies USA said.
Recent enormous AI investment in the U.S. has resulted in a wave of AI-related layoffs; according to Crunchbase, AI has been cited as the reason for one-third of tech layoffs in the U.S. so far this year, compared to just 1% in 2024.
However, the GFT report says that the overwhelming majority of CIOs and CTOs polled were skeptical about this reasoning, with 93.3% of US respondents believing that some public companies use AI as cover for workforce changes meant to boost share price, compared to 90.6% globally.
This article was co-authored by Raphael McMahon
