If your board is pushing on ROI, ask them this one question

If your board is pushing on ROI, ask them this one question

Many executives want to know where the ROI of AI is. Fair question, with the caveat that most firms are trying to measure the wrong things at the wrong time. 

Think about the last time someone asked you what the ROI of sending your kids to school was. Barely anyone asks that. You spend years on tuition, time, and energy, and the return shows up later in ways you couldn’t have predicted or put on a spreadsheet. You just knew it was the right thing to do. 

AI is that kind of investment. But when it comes up in a leadership meeting, it immediately gets treated like a software purchase, show me the payback period, show me the hours saved, show me the number. And when the number isn’t there yet, the initiative stalls. 

We get why that happens. Boards want accountability. That’s fair. But applying the ROI question too early could slow you down while others keep moving. 

What if instead of asking for ROI, you ask: what’s the risk of not investing? RONI, not ROI. Wade Trim, one of the top engineering firms in wastewater, built their AI strategy around exactly this. Their leadership didn’t start by calculating what they’d get back; they started by asking what it would cost them to stay still. Nine months into their AI journey, Rob Sinclair, VP of Innovation, said working through a disciplined AI strategy accelerated their timeline by tenfold. That return wasn’t on any spreadsheet before they started. It happened because they committed to building the capability and let the return follow. 

Many firms also measure AI ROI solely by hours saved. Hours saved are real, but they’re the most obvious return available, and your competitors can get them, too. The returns that actually show up in your business, better decisions, clients who notice the difference, a team that’s energized rather than anxious about deadlines, those don’t fit neatly in a timesheet. But they compound in ways that hours saved never will. 

If your board is pushing on ROI, the most useful thing you can bring to that conversation isn’t a number. It’s a reminder that you’re not buying software, but you’re building a capability. And what the risk of not investing is. 

Wade Trim didn’t start with ROI. They started with RONI: What is the cost of not investing? The return came from that question. It’s worth asking in your next leadership conversation.