Businesses are keen to embrace AI agents, but still struggle to start

• Three in five workers are already using some form of AI agents
• Most IT execs are keen to adopt even more agentic AI
• The same challenges are blocking a full rollout

As artificial intelligence begins to become more engrained into business operations, companies are looking to hand over more of their processes to the more autonomous side of the technology.

A report from Pega claims three in five (58%) workers are already using AI agents, with separate research from AI technology firm UiPath revealing nearly all (93%) of IT execs are very interested in agentic AI.

UiPath also found over two-thirds (69%) of IT execs are using or will use AI agents within the next six months – a figure not too dissimilar to Pega’s.

The next step of AI is agentic AI

We’ve already seen how artificial intelligence can save workers hours per week on mundane, repetitive tasks, and workers are excited to see AI agents automate these tasks, summarize meetings more efficiently, improve the oversight of business workflows and ultimately reduce the amount of time workers spending searching for job-related information.

However, while companies like Salesforce are bidding big on agentic AI, some key hurdles remain in place, and they’re the same challenges that businesses faced and continue to face with regular AI.

UiPath identified IT security issues (56%), the cost of implementation (37%) and integration with existing systems (35%) are concerns among IT executives, while Pega found a lack of confidence in AI’s ability to autonomously replace humans as a sticking point, be it AI’s work quality (33%), the lack of human intuition and emotional intelligence (32%) and untrustworthy AI-generated responses (30%).

“As AI systems become more autonomous, enterprises must strike a balance between autonomy and human oversight to prevent unintended consequences and guarantee that AI-driven actions align with ethical, compliance, and legal standards," noted Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath.

Looking ahead, there is a clear need for better education and transparency to encourage agentic AI adoption, as well as careful consideration as to the balance between AI autonomy and human oversight.

With the right approach, 46% of Pega’s survey respondents believe AI will positively impact their jobs over the next five years.

“Organizations must meet employees where they are by integrating AI agents with actual workflows so they’re not just doing any work, but doing the right work," added Pega CTO Don Schuerman.

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