# Do AI adoption and usage numbers prove ROI?

**The prior:** ~~High AI adoption proves ROI~~

## The short answer

No. Usage is not value. A treadmill gets a lot of usage too. Mostly as a coat rack. Adoption numbers tell you people opened the tool. They don't tell you whether anything got faster, cheaper or better. If an AI pilot is graded on logins, surveys and weekly active users, it can look like a success while changing nothing, or look like a failure while quietly saving hours. Grade it on one business number instead. Pick the number the pilot was supposed to move: time to close a ticket, days to pay an invoice, errors per hundred orders (examples). Measure it before the pilot starts. Measure it again after. Ignore the satisfaction survey. If the number moved, the pilot worked. If it didn't, more adoption won't fix it. Neither will a better slide about adoption.

## Outcome first
- Measure one business number.
- Before and after.

By Eduardo Martínez, updated 2026-10-19. Source: https://rethinkyourpriors.com/priors/adoption-roi/

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Rethink your priors by Eduardo Martínez. AI implementation. Outcomes over tools. And everything else.
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