July 22, 2026 | In the News
Lanai CEO Asks: AI Is Part of Your Labor Force, but What Is That Worth?
Ask anyone in the business world how they categorize artificial intelligence, and most have historically said it’s a tool with near-infinite utility that is transforming whole industries. But with the mainstreaming of agentic technology, the view is shifting, with 78% of executives viewing AI as both software and labor.
When AI becomes a significant labor cost, the obvious question becomes: what is the return on that labor investment and what is it worth to the company?
In a new opinion piece for CIO magazine, Lanai co-founder and CEO Lexi Reese explores that question using findings from a report containing data from Wakefield Research. Wakefield surveyed 200 U.S. technology executives at enterprises with more than 1,000 employees and found that there’s a disconnect between the rise of the AI labor force and the ability to track AI’s work as a business outcome.
“AI is the only category of work the modern enterprise has ever bought without a system of record for what it produced,” Reese writes in her article.
The article cites Lanai’s 2026 AI Labor Report, which details this and other findings, including:
- 92% of the companies these executives work for track AI’s financial and efficiency impact, but only 2% of those organizations record more than half of that work as a business outcome.
- 87% find AI outputs are sometimes or always credited to the human employee approving that work.
- Only 12% have a clear methodology for connecting AI activity to business results.
Wakefield Research Senior Partner Paul Bragan says Lanai’s AI Labor Report is helping build the vocabulary the technology industry needs to measure the business outcomes of AI workers. “Lanai is asking the question every finance and technology leader is wrestling with right now,” Bragan says, “not whether AI works but whether anyone can consistently quantity its value to the bottom line.”
Read the full op-ed at CIO and download the 2026 AI Labor Report at Lanai’s website.
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