‘One of the worst outcomes for companies is reacting in a knee-jerk fashion before the rewards can be reaped’: How game engines, version control software, and AI are delivering new benefits and challenges to almost every industry

Now that businesses of all sizes are adopting AI technologies, the next step is to prove the technology is delivering measurable benefits and improvements.

But nailing down a singular metric to show these benefits is proving difficult.

Sure, businesses can see exactly how much it is costing them, but measuring output is another beast entirely.

Tokkenmaxxing has shown that arbitrary targets of use are not necessarily the best way to measure the productive impact of AI.

But perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from the adoption of other, quieter technologies that are delivering measurable benefits in new industries, and how AI can fit into workflows alongside this new and exciting tech infrastructure.

AI isn't the only tech seeing widespread adoption Perforce’s 2026 State of Real-Time Workflows Report found it isn’t just AI seeing widespread adoption across industries.

Game engines and real-time 3D engines, once used almost exclusively by game developers, have seen a huge wave of adoption across the aerospace and defense, public sector and education, and even media and entertainment.

These tools show measurable improvements in productivity before adoption because they are tried and tested.

They have decades of proven returns shown by the gaming industry.

AI on the other hand is yet to show sustained, measurable return on investment for many businesses.

But there are also a host of other issues accompanying AI use.

Version control software is also seeing a rapid growth in adoption in real-time workflows.

AI is a driving force in this adoption as businesses now have to handle significantly more assets and content within each project.

Having visibility into who changed what - especially with AI agents now involved in workflows - is no longer a choice, but a necessity.