Research · Cross-Industry Analysis
Does size predict AI savings?
Analysis of 6,727 US companies with joint revenue + AI-addressable savings data. Headline finding: median Tier-1 savings is 15% of annual revenue, with cross-industry Pearson r = -0.01 between revenue scale and savings-%.
Companies analyzed
6,727
of 31,602 indexed
Median savings %
15%
tier-1 ÷ annual revenue
Cross-industry r
-0.01
revenue × savings-%
Industries (NAICS-2)
8
cohorts ≥ 30 companies
Revenue × savings-% — full sample
Each dot is one company. The regression line (dashed blue) is the least-squares fit over log-transformed revenue. A flat or shallow line means savings-% is roughly constant across the size spectrum; a steep negative slope would mean larger companies see proportionally less waste.
Across the full sample the slope is mildly negative (r = -0.01). Industry-level dynamics dominate — the heatmap below shows where size effects are strongest.
Industry × size-band heatmap
Median savings-% by 2-digit NAICS sector and size band. Darker cells = larger addressable waste relative to revenue. Top 10 industries shown by sample size.
| Industry (NAICS-2) | mid-size regional | large regional | national operator | enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Healthcare(609) | 23% | — | 4% | — |
| Finance & Insurance(548) | 25% | — | 3% | — |
| Professional Svcs(336) | 23% | — | 4% | — |
| Transportation(143) | 22% | — | — | — |
| Manufacturing (Chem/Plastic)(38) | 40% | — | — | — |
| Manufacturing (Metal/Comp)(30) | 26% | — | — | — |
| Arts/Entertainment(19) | 43% | — | — | — |
| Postal/Warehouse(11) | 29% | — | — | — |
| Admin & Support(6) | 5% | — | — | — |
Cell value = median savings_estimate_tier1 ÷ annual_revenue, expressed as a percent. Cells with fewer than 5 companies are blanked. Numbers in parentheses = total companies in that NAICS-2 cohort.
Top 5 industries by median savings-%
Cohorts with the highest median Tier-1 savings as a fraction of revenue. Read these as "where AI deployment is currently underexploited relative to the operating efficiency it could deliver."
- 1
Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
Median savings: 20% of revenue · 70 companies · within-cohort r = -0.13
- 2
Finance & Insurance
Median savings: 17% of revenue · 2,212 companies · within-cohort r = -0.01
- 3
Manufacturing — Paper, Chemical, Plastic
Median savings: 17% of revenue · 199 companies · within-cohort r = -0.07
- 4
Professional, Scientific & Technical Services
Median savings: 16% of revenue · 1,143 companies · within-cohort r = -0.09
- 5
Health Care & Social Assistance
Median savings: 16% of revenue · 2,327 companies · within-cohort r = -0.01
Methodology
Source. The dataset is content.ai_opportunity_companies, filtered to rows with both annual_revenue > 0 and savings_estimate_tier1 > 0. That yields 6,727 companies of the 31,602 indexed in the AI Adoption Index.
Savings estimate. Tier-1 savings is a per-company estimate of addressable labor waste that AI agents could eliminate within 12-24 months given current model capabilities. It's bottom-up: we identify high-confidence automatable tasks (Tier 1 = production-ready agent solutions today) using the company's industry, headcount, and tech-stack signals, then apply industry-standard cost loadings.
Statistics. Median rather than mean for cohort summaries — the distribution has long tails. Pearson r is computed in-sample on log-transformed revenue; values close to 0 indicate no monotonic relationship at the global level, even when individual cohorts show structure (Simpson's paradox is a real risk here, hence the per-industry heatmap).
Caveats. Companies without published revenue are excluded; this biases the sample toward larger, public-facing firms. Tier-1 savings only counts workloads that are already deployable today — Tier-2 (12-36 month roadmap) and Tier-3 (research-stage) workloads are excluded from this analysis. Healthcare (NAICS-62) is over-represented because Apollo enrichment coverage is denser in that vertical.
Keep exploring
Source dataset
AI Adoption Leaderboard
All 31,602 scored companies — drill into any of them for use-case-level economics.
Adjacent research
WARN Layoff Atlas
12,623 US mass-layoff filings — the demand-side complement to this savings analysis.
Annual benchmark
State of AI Adoption 2026
Where companies sit on the adoption-stage curve — pairs with this savings cut.