OpenAI has unveiled its latest State of Enterprise AI report, which draws insights from a survey of 9,000 employees across approximately 100 enterprises, alongside data from over 1 million business customers. This report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of how organizations are leveraging artificial intelligence in their operations, highlighting significant trends and metrics.
One of the primary findings emphasizes a staggering 320x increase in reasoning token consumption per organization year-over-year. This metric indicates that enterprises are moving beyond basic interactions with AI, engaging in complex, multi-step reasoning tasks that are now integral to their operations. Such an increase suggests that AI is transitioning from a tool for experimentation to a crucial infrastructure component.
Moreover, the report notes that data scientists and engineers are reportedly saving between 40 to 60 minutes per worker each day. Self-reported figures show that a company with 500 employees, where 50% adopt AI tools, could reclaim 1,000 to 1,500 hours weekly. This translates into annual productivity gains of approximately $4 to $6 million, a compelling case for CFOs evaluating return on investment.
The findings also reveal that 75% of workers have acquired new capabilities that were previously beyond their reach, indicating a significant shift in workforce skills. Non-technical staff are now able to engage in tasks such as code review, spreadsheet automation, and custom tool development. This expanded skill set represents a notable transformation in the addressable market for technical work, suggesting that the definition of who can perform such tasks has broadened considerably.
In terms of coding activity, the report highlights a 36% growth among non-engineering functions within just six months, with professionals in sales operations, marketing, and finance now adeptly utilizing coding tools. This rapid development indicates that digital transformation initiatives are being realized not over several years, but rather through a more immediate, bottom-up approach.
Another notable trend is the explosive growth in custom GPTs, which have seen a 19x increase year-to-date, now representing 20% of enterprise workflows. Companies like BBVA run over 4,000 custom GPTs in production, showcasing how organizations are turning their institutional knowledge into reusable AI workflows. Those actively engaging in this transformation are gaining significant competitive advantages, while others risk falling behind as employees develop their own solutions without formal IT approval.
However, the report also uncovers a critical challenge: 25% of enterprises have yet to connect AI tools to their company data. This means that a significant portion of organizations is underutilizing their AI investments, akin to “running a Ferrari on an empty tank.” It further reveals that 19% of monthly active users have never attempted data analysis, while 14% have not utilized reasoning models. The gap is not a lack of access to AI but rather a deficiency in organizational capability to fully harness these tools.
The report concludes with a crucial insight: the primary constraints for organizations are no longer related to model performance or tooling but rather to their organizational readiness to adopt and integrate AI solutions. OpenAI continues to release new capabilities approximately every three days, indicating that the technology is robust enough for enterprise use. The real bottleneck lies in companies’ capacity to effectively integrate these tools, train their workforce, and redesign workflows.
For business founders and B2B executives, the opportunity is not merely to develop more AI features but to facilitate effective deployment and adoption within organizations. Areas of focus should include integration, training, change management, and workflow redesign, as these factors will ultimately dictate the success of AI initiatives in the enterprise landscape.
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