AI budgets are up. Where's the measurable return?

Three enterprise buyers I've spoken with this quarter said roughly the same thing: AI spend is climbing, but nobody can point to a number that actually moved. Pilots get renewed because an exec sponsor likes them, not because the P&L changed. Meanwhile vendors keep reporting record backlog and multi-year commitments. Something has to give — either the productivity shows up in margins next year, or we get a quiet wave of "we're consolidating our AI vendors