Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Gen AI's broad reach
Artificial Intelligence | Marketing & Sales
April 17, 2025 – Across industries, companies are increasingly adopting gen AI, particularly in functions where it has the potential to produce the most value. Gen AI is most used in marketing and sales among all industries surveyed, note Senior Partner Alexander Sukharevsky and coauthors. But tech leads the way in adopting gen AI across all functions. Product and service development is the second-most-common use, heavily adopted by professional services. On average, 71 percent of companies are using gen AI in at least one business function.
To read the survey, see “The state of AI: How organizations are rewiring to capture value,” March 12, 2025.
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Visual form
Table (with Visual Encoding): bubble-matrix table of gen-AI use by business function and industry.
Layout / body structure
Business functions form the rows, industries form the columns, and an overall column sits at the far right. A bottom summary row shows use of gen AI in at least one function.
What is being compared
It compares the share of organizations regularly using gen AI across functions such as marketing and sales, product and service development, IT, service operations, knowledge management, software engineering, HR, risk, strategy, supply chain, and manufacturing, split by industry.
Measurement system
Each bubble is a percent of respondents. Bubble area and the printed number inside the bubble encode the same value.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Larger blue bubbles cluster in marketing and sales and in technology-related columns. The bottom row uses larger gray bubbles to summarize at-least-one-function adoption by industry.
Main takeaway from the visual
The matrix shows gen AI adoption as broad but uneven: marketing and sales is the most common function, technology leads overall adoption, and operational functions such as manufacturing remain much lower.
Key standout values or extremes
Marketing and sales reaches 55 percent in technology, 49 percent in professional services, 48 percent in advanced industries, and 42 percent overall. The at-least-one-function row reaches 88 percent for technology and 71 percent overall, while manufacturing is only 5 percent overall.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a fixed bubble-matrix table; there are no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the gen-AI adoption bubble matrix is the visual on this page.