CB Insights has indicated in a new research report that artificial intelligence is no longer a peripheral experiment for large corporations—it is rapidly becoming embedded in core operations. The analysis of S&P 500 companies from 2023 to 2025 reveals a clear divide: AI professionals are pulling ahead through aggressive partnerships, investments, and talent strategies, while laggards risk falling further behind.
CB Insights also pointed out that nearly 70% of S&P 500 firms—349 companies—engaged in visible external AI activity during this period, including partnerships, investments, acquisitions, or hiring.
Yet activity remains highly concentrated. Just five players—NVIDIA, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Salesforce—accounted for 32% of all deals and collaborations.
The remaining 30% of companies (151 firms) showed no external moves at all, though many are investing internally, as evidenced by heavy AI-related hiring and mentions in earnings calls.
Partnerships have grown fastest, rising 23% to 1,031 in 2025 alone.
However, most are still in the “ecosystem-building” stage—integrations, pilots, and co-marketing—rather than revenue-generating client or vendor relationships.
This pattern signals that enterprises are laying groundwork before scaling monetized deployments.
Cloud providers like Microsoft and Amazon dominate distribution channels, while NVIDIA leverages its infrastructure stack to anchor alliances.
Capital allocation tells a similar story.
More than half of corporate and venture investments flowed to infrastructure and model-layer startups, including Databricks, OpenAI, CoreWeave, Anthropic, xAI, Cohere, Scale, and Groq.
These firms collectively raised over $65 billion in 2024–2025, with large rounds exceeding $50 million comprising more than one-third of deals.
Mergers and acquisitions, though fewer in number, are helping close capability gaps, particularly in governance and vertical applications.
A striking theme is the growing emphasis on control alongside capability.
As autonomous AI agents proliferate, enterprises are prioritizing oversight tools—such as “Know Your Agent” frameworks for identity, permissions, and monitoring—as well as platform-as-a-service solutions, agent tool libraries, and benchmarking systems.
Six of the top ten emerging high-potential markets identified in the report center on agent governance, reflecting concerns around safety, auditability, and scalability.
Looking ahead, the report predicts a shift from hype to measurable ROI.
Success will hinge on operationalizing AI within workflows, proving value in areas like healthcare, CRM, supply chain, and manufacturing, and building proper governance layers.
Infrastructure dominance and ecosystem partnerships will remain critical, but the next wave of M&A and innovation is expected in supporting technologies that help enterprises move from pilots to production at scale.
In short, the enterprise AI buildout is accelerating.
Industry professionals who aim to combine strong infrastructure, thoughtful governance, and focused execution are poised to capture outsized gains, while others must act quickly to avoid being left behind in what CB Insights describes as a widening competitive landscape.