Why agentic AI is the new electricity, and nearly 80% of business leaders are afraid of the dark

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Today, 10% of organizations already use AI agents, more than half plan to use them in the next year, and 82% plan to integrate them within the next three years, according to a Capgemini survey of 1,100 executives at large enterprises.

The survey revealed that 71% of respondents said AI agents would increase workflow automation, 64% said they'd improve customer service and satisfaction, and 57% said the potential productivity improvements outweighed the risks. The biggest use case (75% of respondents) for agentic artificial intelligence (AI) was in software development -- to generate, evaluate, and rewrite code.

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The next great leap forward is autonomous AI -- building a unified platform for agents. "Now, every company wants to be an AI company. Indeed, executive urgency to put the technology to use has increased seven times over the past six months and is now a top concern, above inflation or the broader economy. What's more, 77% of business leaders worry they'll miss out on the AI revolution if they don't deploy it soon. It won't just be chatbots or copilots or agents serving business needs‌ -- it will be all of them operating as one to shape the future of enterprise IT," Jayesh Govindarajan, executive vice president of Salesforce's AI Platform.

Agentic AI will massively redefine the future of work in the next decade. The six levels of autonomous work will drive augmentation capabilities at first, and then full replacement of tasks, roles, teams, and -- ultimately -- lines of business. We know that adoption rates are going to vary from industry to industry and from department to department. Even at the employee level, it's highly unlikely that adoption will be a smooth process.

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According to Gartner, the future of AI is about agency -- and productivity. "Agentic AI has the potential to significantly empower workers. It'll enable them to develop and manage complicated, technical projects -- whether micro automation or larger projects -- through natural language.

Intelligent agents in AI will change decision-making and improve situational awareness in organizations through quicker data analysis and prediction intelligence. While you're sleeping, agentic AI could look at five of your company's systems, analyze far more data than you ever could, and decide the necessary actions," said Tom Coshow, senior director analyst at Gartner.

Autonomous agents appear in the "Innovation Trigger" section of Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. AI's fast evolution is producing autonomous AI systems that can operate with minimal human oversight, improve themselves, and become effective at decision-making in complex environments. These advanced AI systems that can perform any task a human can perform are beginning to move slowly from science fiction to reality. These technologies include multiagent systems, large action models, machine customers, humanoid working robots, autonomous agents, and reinforcement learning.

AI systems are gaining agency to create plans and act autonomously, driving automation and workplace productivity, according to Gartner.

"Today's AI models perform tasks such as generating text, but these are 'prompted' -- the AI isn't acting by itself," according to Gartner's Coshow. "That is about to change with agentic AI or AI with agency. By 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, up from less than 1% in 2024, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously,"

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Meanwhile, Forrester recently published its Top 10 Emerging Technologies for 2024, leading with AI. Forrester defines AI agents as "General AI systems trained to act invisibly on behalf of an enterprise or individual, performing tasks, making decisions, and interacting with data or other systems autonomously."

In its report, Forrester noted that "the evolution of AI agents is perhaps the most exciting development reflected on this year's list. Building upon last year's concept of autonomous workplace assistants, AI agents are leveraging advanced language models to perform complex tasks, make decisions, and interact autonomously on behalf of enterprises or individuals. "

This shift from purely generative AI to agentic AI promises more sophisticated and less brittle automation capabilities. It is also a major factor in the evolution of other important emerging technologies, including the following:

TuringBot agents are accelerating software development. TuringBots, which assist in the software development lifecycle, have seen dramatic acceleration thanks to a previous technology on the list, generative AI for language. Their potential value timeline has shortened from 5-10 years to just 1-2 years. Experimental tools like AutoGen are pushing the boundaries, potentially transforming the role of developers from coders to bot supervisors.
Edge intelligence will drive agents everywhere. Edge intelligence continues to evolve, now incorporating language models for natural language communication with devices. Apple's announcement of Apple Intelligence models exemplifies this trend, embedding sophisticated AI capabilities directly into devices to enhance user experiences and automate tasks within the Apple ecosystem.
Autonomous mobility technology will get a boost from edge intelligence and agents. While fully autonomous consumer vehicles remain a distant goal, autonomous mobility technology is making significant strides in controlled environments. Agents deployed to vehicles and nearby edge environments will be a big factor. Applications in goods transportation, physical space management, and urban public transportation are expected to see substantial growth in the next 2–5 years.

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New research from IDC entitled, The Global Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Economy and Jobs, predicts that business spending to adopt artificial intelligence, to use AI in existing business operations, and to deliver better products/services to business and consumer customers will have a cumulative global economic impact of $19.9 trillion through 2030 and drive 3.5% of global GDP in 2030.

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According to the research, in 2030, every new dollar spent on business-related AI solutions and services will generate $4.60 for the global economy, in terms of indirect and induced effects. The impact of agentic AI on employment? New roles will emerge, while some will remain the same.

Furthermore, according to IDC's, Future of Work Employees Survey, respondents expect some (48%) or most (15%) parts of their work to be automated by AI and other tech over the next two years, while only a minority (3%) of employees expect their jobs to be fully automated by AI.

"The research," IDC notes, "further indicates that a 'human touch intensity,' combined with the level of 'task repetitiveness' by which each job is characterized, will inform organizations about roles that are subject to a full AI and automation replacement, versus those where tech's role will be to augment human capabilities."

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The benefits of agent AI -- enhanced efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, faster time to value, 24/7 availability, scalability, data-driven insights, consistency, and accuracy -- are too powerful to be ignored by business leaders. AI agents will become ubiquitous in every area of our lives and work. The future of the autonomous enterprise is powered by AI agents. Agentic AI is electricity for the 21st century -- ignore it and your business will be in the dark, unable to compete and win.

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