6 Mistakes to Avoid While Allocating Budget for Document Automation in 2026
Hi there,
As we move into the second half of 2025, now’s the perfect time to start thinking about 2026, and there’s no question that AI will play a major role in the plans ahead. But here’s the thing: the way you allocate your AI budget will largely determine how much value and revenue you’ll actually generate from it.
Many businesses today fail after investing heavily in AI, not because the tools don’t work, but because of how and where the budget was spent. Below are the six most common mistakes to avoid when allocating your document automation budget for 2026.
1. Allocating AI Budget Under “Innovation” Without Clear ROI
In 2024, 60% of enterprise Generative AI investments came from innovation budgets.
One of the most common mistakes businesses make is setting aside money for “innovation” without defining a clear ROI. It sounds strategic, but in practice, it often leads to vague projects with no measurable impact.
What to do instead:
Instead of hoping for ROI, start with measurable outcomes and then build your budget around what’s required to achieve them. Shortlist use cases that offer tangible, predictable outcomes. Select document automation tasks that you know will yield efficiency gains or cost savings, and allocate your budget accordingly.
Is your document automation delivering solid ROI? Don’t guess. Get the real numbers in seconds.
2. Adding AI Just to Say You Did
Too often, companies allocate a budget for AI just to appear “AI-enabled,” without any real plan for how to use it. Document automation, especially when scaled, is a long-term investment. Simply “adding AI” for show can lead to high costs and zero returns.
What to do instead:
Focus your budget on the areas of your process that are critical to speed or accuracy. For example, mortgage companies often struggle to close loans quickly. If that’s where the bottleneck is, automate that part first.
Understand where your team is falling behind. Maybe it’s document classification, maybe it’s data extraction, and allocate your budget where it’ll have the biggest impact.
3. Not Evaluating Your Current Stage of Adoption
Are you just starting out with document automation? Are you midway through? Or have you already implemented some advanced tools? Each stage requires a different budgeting approach, which is often not done in practice.
What to do instead:
If you’re just starting out:
If you’re already in advanced stages:
The more advanced your automation setup, the more budget you'll need for integration, performance monitoring, and expansion.
4. Chasing Promises Instead of Proof
With AI and document automation booming, it’s easy to get swayed by flashy buzzwords. Many vendors use terms like “advanced automation,” but behind the scenes, their solutions still rely on high-touch manual processes.
What to do instead:
Ask vendors for real-life use cases that match your industry. Always request a live demo, and if you’re still not convinced, start with a short-term trial instead of a full rollout.
Build some flexibility into your budget, not just for onboarding, but also for trials and pilot testing before full implementation.
5. Not Knowing When to Build vs. When to Buy
Many companies attempt to build their own document automation systems to cut costs. That only works in two scenarios:
In most other cases, building internally leads to half-baked solutions that still require manual intervention and don’t deliver real efficiency gains.
What to do instead:
If you're a small organization, building internally might make sense.
But if you’re a large enterprise with high document volumes and no specialized automation team, you’re better off buying. The more manual work happening in your current workflow, the greater the gains from automation, and the faster your ROI.
6. Ignoring Hidden Costs: Integration, Training, and Upkeep
AI for document automation isn’t just about buying software; it’s about integrating it into your workflows and ensuring your teams can actually use it. Many companies focus their budget on the tech but forget to plan for onboarding, training, maintenance, or change management. Today, most of the IDP vendors take up to 3 months to onboard a system, and not very often, it integrates into your existing IT setup.
What to do instead:
Allocate budget for the full lifecycle:
Pro Tip
Choose a vendor that offers fast onboarding with minimal manual effort. By doing so, you’ll only need to allocate a small portion of your budget to onboarding.
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Regards,
Team Infrrd