# Production capability rose and return did not [Journal](/journal/) July 25, 2026 · [evidence](/journal/#evidence) Domino Data Lab's 2026 enterprise survey shows production capability improving while the payback figure sits where it sat last year, and its own cross-tabs separate the organizations whose rules kept pace from the ones still piloting. ![A chart recorder plotting one rising trace and one flat trace drives a linkage whose verdigris segment passes through an inspection gate into a press that stacks records.](/_astro/production-capability-rose-return-did-not.BvGpbxSf_2bFm6E.webp) Whatever is holding enterprise model programs back, it is no longer the ability to reach production. Domino Data Lab’s 2026 enterprise survey has [93% of organizations reporting improved production capability, up from 88% in 2025](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html), while [return still fails to outpace investment for 57% of them, exactly where that figure sat in 2025](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html). Two waves of one survey, and only one of those numbers moved. ## The capability line rose and the payback line did not Both headline figures come from the same respondents in the same fielding, which is what makes the pair worth reading together rather than quoting one at a time. An organization that could not put models into live systems last year and can today has solved a genuine engineering problem. On this evidence it has not yet changed what it earns. Regional splits do not rescue the number. [51.1% of North American respondents, 66.9% in the United Kingdom, and 67.0% in continental Europe report return at or below what they put in](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html). Even the healthiest of the three leaves most of its respondents at or below the line they invested. ## Nearly as many organizations run agents they cannot account for [43% have agent software running in production with governance in place](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html). Close behind them, [41% are piloting (12%) or scaling (29%) without the governance to manage it](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html). Those two groups are nearly the same size, and only one of them can say what an agent did last Tuesday, on whose authority, and against which rule. Scaling is the load-bearing word in that second group. Piloting without rules stays a contained problem; scaling without them grows the exposure faster than any record of it. ## The organizations whose rules kept pace are the ones in production The survey’s most useful material is its own cross-tabs, which arrive in two cuts under two different labels. Merging them into a single governance claim would overstate what either one measured, so [both are reproduced here as the release states them](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html): Group, as the release labels it What that cut measured Share Governance fully keeps pace Reached governed production 67.5% Governance only partially keeps pace Reached governed production 17.2% Governance fully integrated Delivery speed much improved 75% Governance falling behind Delivery speed much improved 23% On the first cut, an organization whose rules kept pace is [3.9 times as likely](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html) to have reached governed agent production as one whose rules only partly did. The second cut puts a different question to a differently labeled group and comes back pointing the same way. Two questions, two groupings, one direction. A cross-tab measures association and nothing stronger. Respondents graded their own rules and their own delivery inside one questionnaire, so an organization inclined to call its governance fully integrated is also inclined to call its delivery improved. Read narrowly, the split still says something operators can use: wherever these organizations got agents into production, the rules and the records were already standing. ## Domino sells what its survey rewards Name the incentive plainly. Domino Data Lab sells tooling for governed model work, and the sharpest finding in its own survey is that governance is what separates production from pilots. [BARC Research conducted the study independently on Domino’s behalf](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html), which disciplines the fieldwork without changing who commissioned it or what answer would suit them. Its base is [639 senior leaders at Director level and above, in organizations with annual revenue of $100 million or greater, surveyed in April 2026 across North America (397), the United Kingdom (148), and continental Europe (94), in financial services and insurance, life sciences, and the public sector](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html). That is a narrow, senior, large-company sample. It says nothing about the mid-market or about sectors outside those three. [Domino’s own page for the report](https://domino.ai/resources/enterprise-ai-report) carries no figures at all and hands over nothing without a form. Every number above is therefore quoted from the public release rather than from the document it summarizes, which is the version a reader can actually check without trading an email address for it. Domino Data Lab, BARC Research, and the surveyed organizations are neither Muniment customers nor endorsers. Their survey is useful public evidence because it measured the thing most vendors assert and then published the cut that complicates its own headline. The 41% piloting and scaling without governance have the harder year in front of them: the deployment is done, and the record is the part they still owe. ## Sources 1. [Domino Data Lab — The Fifth Annual Domino Enterprise AI Report](https://domino.ai/resources/enterprise-ai-report) domino.ai 2. [PR Newswire — AI ROI Fails to Outpace Spend for 57% of Enterprises, Unchanged Since 2025, Even as 93% Now Report Improved Production](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-roi-fails-to-outpace-spend-for-57-of-enterprises-unchanged-since-2025-even-as-93-now-report-improved-production-302830222.html) prnewswire.com ## Continue reading [All publications](/journal/) evidence · Jul 24, 2026 ### [Cloud versus local model cost is a workload equation](/journal/cloud-versus-local-model-cost-is-a-workload-equation/)