13% see AI value

👋 Hey, Egemen here.

Gartner asked 2,002 CIOs and tech leaders about AI for its 2027 CIO Agenda, published on 19 October. Only 13% of CIOs say AI has delivered significant or transformational value at their company. 58% face more pressure to cut costs with AI. In Scaled, Town raised $108M at a $1B valuation. It reached seven-figure ARR within weeks of its June launch.

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Gartner asked 2,002 CIOs and technology executives about AI between May and July. It published the results on 19 October at its IT Symposium in Orlando.

Only 13% of CIOs say their company has seen significant or transformational value from AI. Gartner puts the success rate of an AI use case at one in five.

AI budgets still grow, Gartner says. But 58% of CIOs now face more pressure to deliver cost savings from AI.

Gartner compares the average CIO with a group it calls vanguards. These CIOs deliver better business results, and their CEOs rate the value of AI high. The vanguards write rules for when to stop.

CIOs with rules for when a pilot should not go to production are 2.3x more likely to be vanguards. Only 31% have those rules. Rules to drop low-value AI that is already live raise the odds 2.6x. Only 17% of CIOs have them.

Alicia Mullery, VP Analyst at Gartner, puts it in four words: “Volume is not value.” She adds that AI costs “are probabilistic and determined at run time.” 51% of CIOs expect AI to raise the total cost of ownership of their tech.

My read for founders who sell AI to companies: your buyer will soon decide which AI tools to drop. Most buyers have no rules for that yet, so you can offer them. A vendor that defines success and the exit before the pilot starts is easy to keep.

👉 Before your next pilot, add two lines to the order form. In line one, name the business metric that must move, and by how much. In line two, name the result that ends the pilot. Then put a monthly cap on AI spend in the contract, so a usage spike cannot surprise the CFO. Send your buyer that metric every month.

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San Francisco / AI assistants for teams / announced 19 October 2026

Town has raised a $108M Series B at a $1B valuation. Forerunner Ventures and Menlo Ventures co-led the round. Existing investors a16z and First Round Capital joined again.

Jean-Denis Greze, the former CTO of Plaid, is the co-founder and CEO. Town gives each employee an AI assistant called a Townie. A Townie connects to email, docs, calendar and core work systems. Townies can also hand off work to each other.

Town launched in June with a $55M Series A. The company says it reached seven-figure ARR within weeks. Since July, paying customers grew 4x and paying teams grew 9x. TechCrunch reports that the company is two years old.

The pricing mixes seats and usage. The Pro plan costs $49 per user per month, billed annually, with 5,000 credits. Extra credits cost $0.044 each, and the overage cap starts at $0.

town.com / See the $108M announcement