Entelgy's study of 300 Spanish C-suite executives finds that 44.5% of companies see AI ROI below 20% of investment, and only 17% achieve ROI above 50%, despite three years of generative AI experimentation [1][1]. The Madrid-based consultancy responds with a three-pillar governance framework covering accountability, shutdown authority, and ethical limits, timed to the EU AI Act's progressive application [1][1]. With AI consulting named the top growth-driving service by 86.7% of channel partners surveyed [2], Entelgy's advisory positioning lands at the center of a rapidly expanding market opportunity.
What is Covered in this Article
- AI ROI gap: why investment alone does not deliver returns [1][1]
- Agentic AI and EU AI Act compliance pressure [1]
- Entelgy's three-pillar governance framework [1]
- Channel partner demand for AI consulting services [2][2]
- Channel market growth trajectory through 2029 [3]
The News: Entelgy published its three-key AI governance framework on September 1, 2026, from Madrid [1]. The release draws on a national study of 300 CEOs and directors at Spanish companies with more than 250 employees, fielded between April 16 and May 12, 2026 [1]. While eight out of ten executives affirm that AI already generates a clear economic return [1], the data tells a more cautious story: 44.5% of companies report ROI below 20% of the amount invested, and only 17% achieve ROI above 50% [1][1]. Entelgy attributes the gap to governance deficits rather than technology shortfalls, and identifies three priority areas: assigning clear internal accountability for each AI system, designating authority to suspend AI processes, and establishing ethical and business-use limits [1].
AI ROI Gap Signals Governance Deficit, Not Technology Deficit
Analyst Take: Three years into the generative AI era, the central enterprise challenge has shifted from access to accountability. Entelgy's study data makes the problem concrete: the most common AI outcome is a return below 20% of what was invested [1], a figure that points directly at organizational and governance gaps rather than product limitations. The arrival of agentic AI, which executes actions and chains tasks autonomously, raises the stakes further, and the EU AI Act's progressive application converts board-level oversight from a best practice into a legal requirement [1].
The ROI Gap Is a Governance Problem
Entelgy's study of 300 Spanish C-suite executives delivers a clear verdict: technology adoption alone does not produce returns [1]. Only 17% of companies achieve AI ROI above 50%, while 44.5% remain below the 20% threshold [1][1]. The consultancy's diagnosis is that the gap between companies capturing AI value and those that are not comes down to integration, accountability, and defined limits set by leadership. When no one owns the outcome of an AI decision, investment diffuses across departments without concentrating on high-impact use cases. This framing shifts the conversation from procurement to governance, which is precisely the advisory space Entelgy is positioning to occupy [1].
Three Governance Levers That Mirror Regulatory Demand
Entelgy's framework is built around three actionable pillars [1]. First, every AI system must have a clearly defined internal owner with authority to supervise its use and respond to incidents. Second, organizations must designate specific individuals with real authority to suspend AI processes when behavior falls outside established parameters, without requiring cross-departmental escalation. Third, leadership must draw explicit ethical and business-use boundaries, because decisions left undefined by the board default implicitly to technical teams, creating inconsistent criteria across the organization. As Alfredo Zurdo, Head of Digital Change at Entelgy, stated: 'When responsibilities, limits, and action criteria are defined in advance, companies can move faster and more securely, without having to rethink each initiative from scratch' [1]. The EU AI Act's progressive application gives each pillar regulatory weight, not just strategic logic [1].
Channel Partners Are Racing to Meet This Demand
Entelgy's governance advisory positioning aligns with a measurable surge in channel partner priorities. Futurum's 2H 2026 Decision Maker Survey finds that AI consulting is the top growth-driving service, cited by 86.7% of respondents (n=225) [2], and AI software including copilots is the top growth-driving technology category, cited by 78.3% (n=258) [2]. More than half of channel partners already sell AI consulting services, with 56.3% (n=400) reporting current offerings in this category [2]. Yet only 52% of channel partners describe themselves as leading-edge in AI confidence (n=400) [2], indicating that demand is outpacing readiness. Consultancies with repeatable governance frameworks are positioned to close that gap for enterprise clients work through both agentic AI complexity and EU AI Act obligations.
Market Scale Validates the Strategic Bet
The commercial context reinforces Entelgy's timing. The channel ecosystem market is forecast to reach $41,817.75M by 2029 at a 36% CAGR from the 2022 base [3], up from a current-year baseline of $25,680.27M in 2026 [3]. At that growth rate, the premium accrues to partners who can deliver AI governance as a structured, repeatable service rather than a one-off engagement. Entelgy's three-pillar framework, backed by proprietary research and more than 20 years of enterprise consulting experience across Spain, Latin America, and the United States [1], is designed for exactly that kind of scalable delivery. The consultancy that converts governance methodology into a partner-ready service catalog stands to capture disproportionate share of a market expanding at more than a third per year.
What to Watch
- ROI improvement rate: whether enterprises applying structured governance frameworks close the gap between the current 44.5% below-20%-ROI cohort and the 17% above-50% cohort over the next two to three quarters [1][1]
- EU AI Act enforcement milestones: which compliance deadlines in Q4 2026 and Q1 2027 accelerate demand for third-party governance advisory engagements [1]
- Channel partner AI consulting penetration: whether the 56.3% of partners already selling AI consulting [2] expands materially as the 86.7% growth-expectation signal [2] converts into booked revenue
- Agentic AI incident frequency: whether early enterprise deployments of autonomous task-chaining AI produce governance failures that validate or accelerate adoption of shutdown-authority frameworks [1]
- Channel market trajectory: whether the base-case $41,817.75M 2029 forecast [3] holds as macroeconomic conditions and AI investment cycles evolve into 2027
Sources
1. Cómo rentabilizar la IA este nuevo curso, Entelgy, September 2026
2. 2H 2026 Ecosystems, Channels & Marketplaces Global Enterprise Decision Maker Survey Report, Futurum Research, August 2026
3. 2H 2025 Hyperscaler Marketplace Market Sizing & Five-Year Forecast, Futurum Research, December 2025
Disclosure: Futurum is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
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