Everyone uses AI. Most can't show it pays.
AIMI is a research programme on AI maturity in European enterprises, with a focus on Germany and the DACH region. AIMI shows where AI value gets stuck in each business function — from data and processes to measurement and oversight — and what to fix first. Every number we publish is checked at its source.
~10 minutes · 25 items · free · methodology public · every question sourced
The state of play, in verified numbers
80% → 37%
say AI has improved their own productivity — yet only 37% of organisations report any EBIT contribution, flat year on year.
McKinsey Global Survey, Aug 2026 (n=1,719)
61.3%
of 1,900 organisations across 20 markets are still in the two least mature stages. The mean barely moved in a year.
IDC MaturityScape, 2026
83% vs 2.7%
of the S&P 500 disclose AI as a risk — while only 2.7% of directors bring AI expertise.
The Conference Board
89% vs 33%
of German executives call AI highly relevant — yet only a third consider their company adequately equipped.
KPMG Germany, 2026
What AIMI is
Research
A continuously maintained evidence base — 50 verified sources, each checked at its origin, dated and linked. Unverifiable figures are never published.
The evidence base →Boardroom AI Monitor
What boards actually write about AI: every AI mention in the FY2025 annual reports of 20 WIG20 and 20 DAX companies, classified by context and set against European sector peers.
Open the Monitor →The Index
A five-level maturity scale scored per function across six dimensions, with governance capping the achievable level. Peer benchmarks are published only once a segment reaches a defensible sample.
How scoring works →The assessment
Twenty-five research-referenced items, one function, about ten minutes. You receive a level, a sourced roadmap, EU AI Act exposure flags, consistency checks and a board-ready summary — by e-mail, free.
The thesis
AI maturity is not capability you have. It is capability you can govern and scale. Adoption is now universal; the constraint is the operating model — integration, process, measurement and oversight. That is why AIMI assesses each business function separately rather than the company as a whole — and why weak oversight of AI limits the score instead of being averaged away by strengths elsewhere.
Research instrument · Boardroom AI Monitor 2026
What boards actually write about AI
An analysis of the FY2025 annual reports of 20 WIG20 and 20 DAX companies, set against 78 sector peers from 17 European countries. Every mention is quoted with its page and source.
1 in 6
AI mentions concerns revenue and growth (17%). Boards write about AI mainly as cost (32%) and risk (27%) — and 6 in 10 mentions contain nothing concrete.
40
companies — 20 WIG20, 20 DAX
2,005
AI mentions in FY2025 annual reports
31 / 39
companies mention AI more often than two years earlier
78
European peer companies from 17 countries
Context classification checked by hand before publication: 92% agreement in the pilot, 98% on 85 mentions in the 2026 edition (publication threshold: 80%). A signal, not a benchmark — the methodology and the full dataset are public.
Latest research
All 50 sources →Companies that scale AI innovation together with governance report 3× the ROI of low-innovation companies; innovation without governance, 2×. Companies that record and codify their AI decisions report more than 30% higher ROI than those that only record them, and are twice as likely to have more than 50 use cases in production.
Governance multiplies value rather than slowing it. 80% say enterprise AI decisions are owned by named executives or a standing committee, but only 52% extend accountability to end users, and on average 16% of employees use unapproved AI tools. BCG-defined segments: an association, not proof of cause.
BCG, "How to Balance AI Innovation and Governance in 2026" · 26 Oct 2026
Among organisations reporting established ROI from AI, 86% run a formal cross-functional or enterprise-wide AI management layer (65% enterprise-wide); among organisations still experimenting, 31% do (10% enterprise-wide).
Return and governance travel together: organisations that report ROI are almost three times as likely to run AI through a formal management layer. A survey association, not proof of cause.
KPMG, Global AI Pulse Q3 2026 · 5 Oct 2026
Austrian companies raised their average AI maturity (McKinsey AIQ, 0–100) from 30 to 36 points in a year — but the gap between leaders and laggards widened from 37 to 41 points, and about 7 in 10 still struggle to measure the success of AI initiatives.
Maturity rises while value stays hard to prove: 7 in 10 could not say how many AI tokens they use per month, talent is the weakest dimension (2.7 of 5), and for about half, funding and governance remain a structural brake.
McKinsey & Company, "State of AI in Austria: Update 2026" (press release) · 9 Oct 2026
An independent research programme founded by Andrzej Chądzyński.
~10 minutes · 25 items · free · methodology public · every question sourced
The AIMI Research ecosystem
Research instruments
AIMI Assessment
Function-level AI maturity, governance-capped, every item sourced. 25 items, about 10 minutes.
Boardroom AI Monitor 2026 edition
FY2025 annual reports of 20 WIG20 and 20 DAX companies, set against 78 European sector peers — every AI mention quoted and sourced.
Open →Public education
THE TURNING / PRZEŁOM
An interactive map of the AI transition for young adults, teachers and leaders.
A separate public-education wing of AIMI Research — not a research instrument.
AI Matcher
A free, AI-guided university matcher for students choosing where to study in Europe — part of the same public-education wing.