Our AI and ad pilots made $0. Here’s how we’re addressing it

Photo credit: Tech in Asia

Earlier this year, we made a point of being painfully honest.

We shared how our US$3,000 search ad campaign yielded no meaningful leads. We wrote about how our US$1,600 AI outbound experiment became a black box that generated zero revenue.

We fell into the classic trap of running isolated pilots – aimed to automate mundane processes or exponentially impact growth – and only achieved vanity metrics. Looking at the wider enterprise landscape, we aren’t the only ones bleeding money in pursuit of what we thought was greatness. 

In February, McKinsey & Company and the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) published the AI in Southeast Asia report. Over 330 companies were surveyed, and the data revealed an uncomfortable truth: Vision doesn’t scale, and isolated pilot projects don’t generate revenue.

The launch of the Ain in Southeast Asia report by EDB and McKinsey & Company. / Photo credit: Tech in Asia

More than 60% of organizations in Southeast Asia are pouring up to 40% of their budgets into AI. Yet, nearly three in five respondents said these efforts have only led to less than 5% in earnings before interest and taxes. 

We are throwing massive budgets at a wall and realizing the ROI isn’t sticking. If you can’t transition from testing a cool new tool to driving pipeline and growth, your AI investments are just expensive sunk costs.

Bridging the execution gap

The problem isn’t a lack of belief. In the report, fewer than 3% executives cited a lack of leadership sponsorship as a barrier. 

The intent is there; the problem is execution. Founders and commercial leaders are struggling with talent shortages, messy internal processes, and an inability to map AI to actual sales and business outcomes – something we are very familiar with.

According to Paul Beamont, partner at McKinsey & Company, “The real differentiator will not be how fast Southeast Asia adopts AI, but how thoughtfully it scales it. The most successful companies … anchor their AI agendas in outcomes over experimentation.”

To stop burning budget and actually hit your business goals this year, you can’t just buy an AI license and hope for the best. We realized that driving ROI requires focusing on two tracks: the macro track (policy and infrastructure) and the micro track (operationalization and scalability).