One quarter of Brazilian companies currently have at least one use case based on artificial intelligence – in 2024, it was 12% – according to the 4th edition of Bain & Company's survey on the adoption of generative AI. The survey also highlights that 67% of organizations in the country consider this technology one of their five strategic priorities, and for 17%, it is already the main focus of investments.
Lucas Brossi, a partner at Bain, highlights the rapid scalability of the technology and that the number of AI use cases has been growing steadily. Generative AI goes beyond a technological innovation; it redefines operational models, drives efficiency gains, and creates new growth opportunities. Current models are trained on increasingly larger databases, spend more time on inference—with reasoning behavior—and multimodality is advancing at an impressive pace.
The study indicates that companies implementing generative AI have achieved a 14% increase in productivity and a 9% growth in financial results. Furthermore, there was a slight increase in the number of organizations that are in the experimentation phase or that already have at least one use case. As expected, the only percentage that decreased (-15%) was that of companies that still do not use AI.
Despite the progress, challenges such as technological infrastructure and talent shortages remain the main obstacles to faster implementation, both cited by 39% of respondents. In Brazil, the main applications of generative AI are in productivity tools, software development, finance, and marketing.
Bain's research highlights that the capacity of generative AI has been growing at an accelerated pace, while the costs of using LLMs (large language models) have decreased by approximately 95% since 2022. This scenario has driven the dissemination of technology. "First, we saw a wave of implementation with generative AI chatbots. Then, a new phase emerged with co-pilots, which brought more agility to complex tasks. Now, we are entering a third phase, with proactive intelligent agents capable of executing multiple steps to achieve a goal – the so-called Agentic AI," comments Brossi on the evolution of the technology.
The use of AI in daily life is also increasing among Brazilians: 62% of respondents say they are familiar with AI tools, and 17% use them frequently.
Companies that embrace generative AI as a transformation driver are reshaping their strategies and positioning themselves ahead in the race for competitiveness. With the rapid evolution of technology and the falling costs, organizations that adopt a proactive approach to integrating these tools into their processes increase their efficiency and create new business opportunities. In the current scenario, it is essential for companies to follow trends to lead change – otherwise, they risk falling behind.
