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Glossary entry

AI Value Gap

The difference between what an organisation spends on AI and the share of that spend it can connect to a measured outcome: the complement of attribution coverage.

Why it matters

The AI Value Gap matters because organisations can scale platform cost, vendor commitments, and operational complexity before they establish enough visibility, ownership, and proof to justify continued investment.

The term is especially useful for executives because it shifts the conversation from model quality alone to whether the enterprise can observe, own, and defend the economics of the capability.

It is not the same as the gap between leading and lagging firms that some consultancy studies describe; this gap sits inside one organisation's own books. For a fuller framework, see the flagship essay on The AI Value Gap.