Overview available free – survey requires subscription: “The efficiency and value of AI Proof of Concept (PoCs) projects and pilots are the subject of heated debate, fuelled by reports claiming that only a handful make it to production. This has been interpreted as proof that generative AI is failing to scale, that stalled PoCs mean AI cannot deliver against investment drivers, and worse still, that we are heading for an AI bubble. However, Omdia’s 2025 AI Market Maturity Survey reveals a more nuanced, balanced prognosis for AI POCs, and what this means for AI.  Omdia’s survey reveals enterprises are actively engaged with AI PoCs. Most are drawn to conservative to moderate experimentation, with 40% running 6-20 PoCs, while 18% operate 21-50 PoCs, showing broader AI commitment across multiple use cases. Only 4% of enterprises run over 100 PoCs, with the most intense activity at this level dominated by the largest companies in the survey. This is not surprising, as PoCs at this scale are resource-intensive and expensive, and even more so for pilots. Twenty-one percent of enterprises in the survey run fewer than 5 PoCs, which could reflect early-stage adoption or lack of resources. It is notable that 43% of firms in the survey with revenues below $100 million are running fewer than 5 PoCs.

Forty-six percent of enterprises say that over 10% of PoC projects move forward to production, with most of these (37%) falling in the 11-40% range, while 10% of organizations report success rates above 40%. Under a third of respondents say fewer than 5% of PoCs make it to production, while 21% put the figure at 5-10%. This points to a mixed, nuanced picture for PoC progress, a bifurcation rather than universal failure where many enterprises are successfully transitioning from AI PoCs to production while others are still clearly struggling.  The whole point of a PoC is to qualify AI initiatives and services at an early stage and to use the old proverb, separate the wheat from the chaff. Frankly, it would be worrying if all initial PoCs – typically limited in scope and experimental – passed all success metrics without refinement. Conversely, even if only a small percentage advance to production, properly validated AI initiatives can deliver significant, far-reaching impact. PoCs serve as decision-making tools and should not be viewed purely as a numbers game.  Moreover, Omdia’s AI Market Maturity Survey shows that AI solutions that have been deployed are either meeting, or exceeding expectations against a wide range of investment drivers. For example, 30% of enterprises report that AI deployments aimed at increasing productivity have exceeded expectations, while 49% say they are meeting expectations.”