AI ROI measurement

Are we actually getting ROI from AI?

Usage is easy to count. Incremental business value is not. I help executive teams separate AI activity from real financial impact using econometrics, causal analysis, and statistical modeling.

Get a defensible answer your CFO, board, and operating leaders can use to decide what to scale, fix, or stop.

Discuss your AI ROI question Try the quick diagnostic

Independent analysis. Decision-ready evidence. No vendor scorekeeping.

Executive measurement brief Decision-ready

Did AI cause the outcome—or merely coincide with it?

Incremental impact Measured, not assumed
Counterfactual What would have happened anyway?
Recommendation Scale / optimize / stop
01Define value
02Estimate incrementality
03Quantify uncertainty
04Make the capital decision

The measurement problem

A dashboard is not an ROI model.

AI usage, hours saved, and adoption rates are useful operating metrics. They do not prove that AI created incremental profit. A credible ROI answer needs a counterfactual, an attribution strategy, and uncertainty bounds.

01

Frame the economic question

Translate AI activity into a measurable outcome: revenue, conversion, retention, cost-to-serve, cycle time, risk, or quality.

02

Build the counterfactual

Use experiments, difference-in-differences, panel models, matching, interrupted time series, or synthetic controls as the data permits.

03

Model the economics

Connect incremental impact to total costs, adoption, model routing, labor substitution, and downside scenarios.

04

Turn evidence into action

Produce an executive readout that identifies which AI investments to scale, redesign, renegotiate, or stop.

Quick diagnostic

AI ROI Calculator

Include model/API costs, software, infrastructure, implementation, and ongoing labor where relevant.

Use incremental, AI-attributed, or AI-influenced revenue where possible. If you enter total company revenue, interpret the result as a rough spend-efficiency metric, not true causal ROI.

The timeframe labels the output; it does not change the formulas.

OLS evidence

Conservative error check

Add at least three comparable spend and AI-attributed revenue rows. The tool fits ordinary least squares and uses residual error to report a 95% lower-bound ROI estimate.

Period or workflow AI spend AI-attributed revenue Remove

Confidential conversation

Bring the question. I’ll help design the answer.

Tell me where your AI program stands and what decision is blocked. I’ll review the question and follow up directly.

  • Measurement strategy grounded in your available data
  • Methods selected for the decision—not for show
  • Clear uncertainty, limitations, and next steps

Your inquiry is stored privately and used only to respond to you.

No mailing list. No automated pitch. Just a direct follow-up.

FAQ

What executives usually ask next

What is AI ROI?

AI ROI estimates the return generated by AI investments relative to AI spend.

What should I count as AI spend?

Include model/API costs, software subscriptions, infrastructure, implementation costs, and ongoing labor where relevant.

Can we measure AI ROI without a randomized experiment?

Often, yes. The right quasi-experimental or time-series design depends on rollout timing, comparison groups, outcome frequency, and how adoption was assigned.

What if our data is incomplete?

The first step is a measurement audit: identify what can be estimated now, which assumptions matter most, and what instrumentation would make the next decision more credible.