Coupa: Exec AI Skills Gap Is Slowing ROI on Key Tech Investments

Coupa, the leading AI platform for Total Spend Management, today released the findings of its new Coupa Clarity AI Impact Report providing clear answers as to why so many major AI initiatives are struggling to deliver ROI.

The research, done in partnership with Incisiv Research, based on insights from over 600 business leaders, reveals the barrier to achieving AI success is not the technology itself, but a profound disconnect in the AI skills gap among executives. This gap is creating a strategic vacuum between the leaders who fund AI projects and the teams expected to implement it, leaving crucial projects stuck in pilot mode or that remain unfinished.

AI Ambition Outpaces Real Action
The report exposes a clear disconnect preventing organizations from moving past basic pilots to deliver enterprise-wide AI value:

• Only 5% of executive decision-makers use AI on a daily basis, compared to 57% of their technical teams. This massive fluency gap means the people funding mult-million-dollar AI initiatives often lack the hands-on understanding of AI to set realistic goals and strategies.
• A staggering 86% of companies recognize AI as essential for survival, yet just 29% of companies have a clear, company-wide strategy for implementation, proving that enterprise AI ambition currently far outpaces execution.
• 72% of AI initiatives and projects remain stuck in pilot mode, yet 47% of executives still expect meaningful business payback within 6–12 months. 77% of organizations cite data quality and system integration (including legacy IT) as the primary barriers to real results.

“This research is a wake-up call. The days of funding AI based on hypothetical results or unproven potential are over,” said Dennis Bruder, Chief Product Officer of AI at Coupa. “The bar for ROI on AI investments has been substantially raised, and decision-makers are looking for technology to drive meaningful value. To achieve the aggressive projections–69% of organizations anticipate substantial AI-powered automation by 2030 and 83% by 2035–executive leaders must move past theoretical commitment and focus on the strategic platforms that provide both the necessary technical infrastructure and the embedded governance to enable workforce adoption. Execution now depends on platform selection more than many other factors.”

The Path to Real AI ROI: Prioritizing Unified Suites and Platforms Over One-off AI Tools
The market is rapidly shifting toward unified solutions that bridge the execution gap immediately, emphasizing speed and proven time-to-value:

• 80% of companies now favor purchasing AI from external solutions like unified platforms rather than building it internally (only 10% choose custom internal builds) indicating a decisive shift.
• Only 2% of AI investment is currently dedicated to orchestration, even though 77% of leaders prioritize simple task automation. This gap highlights a critical failure to move beyond isolated AI tasks or tools to achieve exponential enterprise-wide AI value.
• While 65% of executives prefer “human-in-the-loop” oversight to manage fear of critical errors, 56% of leaders are unsure if their company even has an AI governance policy. Without strict governance frameworks, this necessary human safeguard threatens to become a major bottleneck, slowing down automation.

The gap between AI ambition and ROI exists because successful implementation requires far more than theoretical commitment. Executive commitment must shift from hype to realistic, sustained strategies by moving beyond isolated task automation and orchestrating value through unified AI platforms.

The complete Coupa Clarity AI Impact Report provides a blueprint for moving past experimentation into full-scale ROI. Download the full report here to gain detailed insights.

Additional Resources

• Join the webinar to discover how you can turn AI potential into measurable performance.
• Register for the Real AI@Work Academy to level up your team’s AI skills.

Methodology
Findings are based on the Coupa and Incisiv 2025 Clarity AI Impact Report, a study titled “Beyond the Hype: The Business Impact of Real AI on Spend Management,” which captured insights from 641 senior leaders across procurement, finance, IT, and supply chain. All respondents were Director-level or above, across six major industries in North America, EMEA, and APAC.