By Angus Hay, Founder & CEO, Vereus AI
Back in December, a Managing Director said something to me that perfectly summed up the current state of AI in business:
“We’ve rolled out three AI tools this year and I still can’t point to a single pound they’ve made us.”
He was more confused than he was frustrated. He’d had impressive demos from companies that promised a lot, yet when it came to real commercial impact, nothing meaningful had actually changed.
That conversation now happens almost weekly.
AI is everywhere. Every platform is “AI-powered”. Every consultancy promises transformation. I can’t even stomach going onto LinkedIn any more because of the AI-generated clutter.
But business leaders are starting to ask an important (and long overdue) question:
Is this actually delivering a return on investment?
The disappointing reality of the hype
From my experience building AI systems, the brutal truth is that a lot of businesses won’t see a return on their investment. Not because the technology doesn’t work, but because it’s being used – and considered – in the wrong way.
Most companies are buying AI tools rather than building AI systems.
They’re implementing tools for chatbots, content generation, data assistance, the list goes on. Each produces something…useful?… but none are aligned with the core challenges of the business.
And businesses don’t make money from outputs – they make money from outcomes.
Real return on investment only happens when AI is designed and built around clear commercial outcomes or strategic goals, such as shortening sales cycles, increasing conversions, removing manual work, or by fixing specific operational challenges.
Buying tools instead of solving problems
One area where this became very clear for us was sales.
Outbound automation has destroyed trust. Generic emails have flooded inboxes (I’m sure we can all relate to this!) and response rates have collapsed. The original idea was right – reach more prospects efficiently – but the execution is broken.
What AI finally made possible was genuine relevance and personalisation at scale.
Instead of treating AI as a simple tool for creating blanket emails to uninterested cold audiences, we asked a question: can AI be used to conduct thorough research and outreach to cold prospects? If we got this right, the return on investment could be significant.
So we built a sales system to do exactly that.
Our system is pre-trained and ready to run, designed to deliver ROI and produce actual sales results. A client simply uploads a spreadsheet of leads and the system analyses each prospect individually – researching its business and market, identifying likely challenges, and shaping hyper-personal and hyper-relevant outreach around what actually matters to the prospect.
What would take around four hours of research per lead (that’s 4,000 human hours for a list of 1,000 prospects) now happens almost instantly.
But the real breakthrough here is the business impact.
We worked extensively with clients and sales teams to deliver on the metrics that matter; conversions and revenue.
You see, when AI is designed and built around revenue and results rather than novelty, everything changes.
The surprising truth about profitable AI
The businesses that are winning with AI today aren’t using off-the-shelf shiny tools from an over-hyped and over-valued Silicon Valley company. They’re examining their business goals and placing AI inside those systems as an engine, not as an add-on.
Ironically, the most profitable AI implementations are often the least flashy.
From hype to real results
We’re now entering the next phase of the AI revolution, where we are starting to see beyond the hype. Leaders are no longer impressed by what AI can do – they now care about what it delivers.
So, is AI actually making businesses money yet?
For most: no – not in a meaningful or repeatable way.
For those building outcome-driven systems around it: absolutely!
The companies that understand this now won’t just adopt AI faster than their competitors. They’ll outperform them. And that’s where real return on investment finally begins.
angus@vereus.co.uk
www.vereus.co.uk
