Deloitte’s CTO on a stunning AI transformation stat: companies are spending 93% on tech and only 7% on people

Deloitte CTO Bill Briggs warns that enterprises are investing 93% of AI budgets in models, chips and software and only 7% in the people, processes and culture needed to deploy them effectively, a misallocation that fuels buyer’s remorse and institutional inertia; Protiviti echoes that HR must redesign jobs for AI. The imbalance is already showing operational and trust costs: Deloitte’s TrustID data shows GenAI workplace usage down 15%, 43% of workers admit using unapproved tools (“shadow AI”), corporate trust in GenAI fell 38% between May and July 2025, and employees with hands-on training report 144% higher trust. For investors the takeaway is that technology alone won’t deliver value—failure to fund training, governance and human-centric integration creates execution, compliance and liability risks (even as early, holistic adopters like HPE report faster decision cycles), so capital allocation and M&A decisions should factor in firms’ readiness to transform workflows and manage AI agents.

Analysis

Deloitte CTO Bill Briggs highlights a pronounced budget imbalance—93% of AI spend on technology versus 7% on people and processes—creating a risk of "buyer's remorse" as boards delay commitments to avoid rapid obsolescence. Briggs frames this as institutional inertia where organizations bolt AI onto existing workflows instead of reimagining them, increasing the chance that expensive tech will not be adopted.

The consequence is measurable: Deloitte's TrustID shows GenAI workplace usage down 15%, 43% of workers admit using unapproved tools and surveys indicate up to 90% of companies experience hidden AI use, while corporate trust in GenAI fell 38% between May and July 2025. Workers receiving hands-on training report 144% higher trust, underscoring that people investment materially affects adoption and that "shadow AI" and multi-generation agent liability create compliance and legal risk.

Market implication favors integrated adopters: firms that couple technology with governance and HR redesign can capture value (HPE reported 50% faster data-to-decision), whereas tech-heavy spenders face execution risk and potential regulatory exposure. Investors should therefore distinguish companies by demonstrable human-centric integration, governance frameworks and adoption metrics rather than by headline tech spend alone.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Prioritize investments in companies that disclose material budgets, governance plans and HR initiatives for training and workflow redesign rather than those emphasizing models and hardware only
• Favor vendors or corporates with documented adoption metrics or case studies (for example HPE-style outcomes) and underweight firms with high tech spend but low employee uptake or weak compliance controls
• Monitor operational KPIs—internal GenAI usage, shadow-AI incidence, training completion rates and trust metrics—and treat deteriorating trends as sell or re-rate signals
• Use staged exposure or hedges where management shows credible human-centric integration and avoid binary calls based solely on vendor roadmap announcements given the documented "buyer’s remorse" risk