Free decision sheets for managers Independent review →
Vic Sol Decision Desk
ES Find my sheet
Menu

Measure and budget

From hours saved to growth: AI return scorecard

Anyone reporting AI results to leadership.

Editable template 10 min to use From video 5 · IA sin humo Updated 2026-10-19
Vic Sol · Decision DeskEditable template · 10 min to use

From hours saved to growth: AI return scorecard

For anyone reporting AI results to leadership who today has only hours saved to show.

When to use it

  • Your AI report says "we saved 300 hours" and leadership asks what happened to those hours.
  • You have several live use cases and none of them has a business number next to it.
  • You were asked for the return on AI and the only thing measured is efficiency.

The sheet

One row per use case. Hours saved stay; what gets added is a growth indicator, an owner and the platform it runs on.

Use caseHours saved per monthGrowth indicatorValue todayTarget and dateOwnerApproved platform?
[process]____[sales, new clients, clients served, response time]________[name]Yes / No

Illustrative example: "Quote drafting · 40 hours · client response time · 3 days · 1 day by 31 March · Marta, sales · Yes".

Where do the hours saved in this row go? ______________________________

How to fill it in 10 minutes

  1. List the use cases already running, not the planned ones. One per row.
  2. Copy the hours saved you already report. Do not recalculate them; the goal is to add, not replace.
  3. Pick a single growth indicator per row: sales, new clients, clients served or response time. If you cannot find one, that row is efficiency only and it is worth saying so.
  4. Put a named owner from the area that uses the tool.
  5. Mark whether the case runs on the company's approved platform or on a tool someone tried on their own.
  6. The most common mistake: turning hours into money by multiplying by an hourly cost and calling it return. A saved hour nobody reinvests shows up in no report; the growth column exists to know where it went.

What the study says

Fact: Wharton and GBK published their annual report on AI adoption in companies on 13 October 2026. Among companies that measure at least one growth indicator, such as sales or new clients, 35% report a strongly positive return. Among those that measure only hours saved, 13%.

Fact: among companies that use a single approved platform, half report a strongly positive return. Among those still trying everything, 9%.

My read: a saved hour nobody reinvests shows up in no number. Measuring growth forces a decision about where that hour goes. And standardising on one platform does not cause the return by itself; it is a relationship, not a cause. What it does do is put the use case's owner, data and support in the same place.

Vic Sol · Decision Desk · vicsol.org/resources/ · Free to use with attribution. This sheet structures a conversation; it is not legal, financial or audit advice.

  1. Open the .docx in Word (or the .xlsx in Excel) or print it before the meeting.
  2. Fill the fields with the team; leave the blanks visible, they are the discussion.
  3. Close with one owner, one date and one next action. Nothing else.

Prompt

Generate this sheet for your case

Paste this prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini together with your proposal, process or policy. It reproduces the sheet with your data and flags what is missing.

Download the prompt (.md) 
Act as an operations director who reports to a demanding board and who does not accept hours saved as a return until knowing which business indicator they turned into.

Context I am giving you:
- Company and area: [e.g. financial services company, operations]
- AI use cases already running today: [one per line, with what they do]
- Hours saved I already report for each one, if I have them: [ ]
- Business indicators leadership already tracks (sales, new clients, clients served, response time): [ ]
- Approved AI platform in the company, if there is one: [ ]
- Current report, if I have one: [paste text or write "none"]

What I need: build the AI return scorecard with exactly this structure:
1. A table with one row per use case and the columns Use case · Hours saved per month · Growth indicator · Value today · Target and date · Owner · Approved platform?
2. For each row, a single growth indicator. If there is no reasonable one, write "efficiency only" in that cell instead of forcing one.
3. Below it, one line per use case answering: where do the hours saved go?

Output format: the table and the lines on where the hours go. Maximum 350 words. No introduction.

Rules:
- Do not invent figures or owner names. If data is missing, write [DATA PENDING] and tell me how to get it.
- Do not turn hours into money by multiplying by an hourly cost; that column does not exist in this scorecard.
- Flag every assumption as an assumption and every example number as "illustrative".
- If critical information is missing, ask me at most 3 questions before answering.
- Answer in plain, direct business English, with no sales adjectives and no promises of return.

What to check in the answer:

  • Does each row have a single growth indicator, or did it add three to cover itself?
  • Did it write "efficiency only" where there was no indicator, or force one nobody will measure?
  • Is the owner a person from the area that uses the tool, or did it default to "the AI team"?

Kits

This resource is a step in

Kit · 6 steps Prioritise use cases and measure the return

Measure and budget

Related in the same situation

One-page sheet · 10 min Measure this before you automate: compared with what? One-page sheet · 5 min More productive, not more profitable: where does the saved hour go? Editable template · 15 min Almost nobody compares cost against value: the quarterly review

← Back to the library

If this becomes a big decision

If the decision is hard to reverse and carries your name, the free Decision Clarity tools help you structure it. They do not replace a formal review.

Open the free tools