CARY, N.C. – September 05, 2026 -- Organizations that embed trustworthy AI practices are 15 times more likely to report strong or high ROI from AI projects than those that don't, according to a new report from SAS with research insights by IDC.
Governance leaders report 62% strong ROI versus 4% for laggards
The second annual Data and AI Impact Report: The New Economics of Trust surveyed 2,699 decision-makers across 28 countries and four industries -- banking, insurance, life sciences and the public sector. Organizations with the strongest governance, data quality and auditability practices reported at least double the ROI of peers, while fewer than one in 20 'laggard' organizations achieved comparable results. AI leaders with trustworthy practices realize 1.85 times greater gains across 13 business outcomes, including revenue growth, cost savings and customer experience, and 85% of these leaders are increasing investment by more than 10% this year.
97.2% of employees override AI recommendations at least some of the time
The top reason employees override AI output -- regardless of whether the result was correct -- is when the system cannot explain how it reached a decision. Trust levels drop from 76% for generative AI to 66% for agentic AI as systems gain autonomy, according to the report. Bryan Harris, CTO at SAS, noted that state-of-the-art agents can have error rates exceeding 25% on complex tasks, citing the Stanford HAI 2026 AI Index Report and independent benchmark evaluations, calling such rates unacceptable for high-stakes decisions.
Only 17.5% of enterprises have data infrastructure mature enough for agentic AI
Weak data foundations are undercutting AI performance industry-wide. Organizations with optimized data infrastructure are four times more likely to expect strong ROI and six times more likely to mandate the data quality and explainability controls needed to build trust, the report found. Chris Marshall, Vice President at IDC, said stronger oversight, explainability, accountability and data foundations are becoming prerequisites for scaling AI.
Banking governance frameworks reach 85% among AI leaders versus 29% of laggards
Industry-specific findings show banking leaders treating AI governance as a competitive advantage rather than a compliance checkbox, with 85% of AI leader banks having established governance frameworks compared to 29% of laggards. Forty-one percent of public sector leaders plan to increase trustworthy AI investment by more than 20% in the coming year. Life sciences organizations lead all industries in enterprise-wide AI scaling, with 23% having deployed AI company-wide.