TLDR: A recent Gartner survey, reported by IT Brief Asia, indicates that only 15% of IT application leaders are actively considering, piloting, or deploying fully autonomous AI agents within their organizations. Despite 75% engaging with AI agents in some capacity, widespread adoption of truly agentic AI is hindered by significant concerns regarding governance, solution maturity, agent sprawl, and trust in hallucination protection. The report emphasizes the critical need for clear organizational alignment and robust governance frameworks to unlock the full potential of these advanced AI tools.
A new survey conducted by Gartner and highlighted in IT Brief Asia on October 1, 2025, reveals a cautious approach by enterprises towards the full-scale adoption of autonomous AI agents. The research, which gathered insights from 360 IT application leaders across North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific, found that a mere 15% are currently considering, piloting, or deploying fully autonomous AI agents.
While the survey indicates a broader engagement with AI agents, with 75% of respondents involved in some form of piloting or deployment, the transition to fully agentic AI is encountering substantial roadblocks. Key barriers identified include concerns over governance, the current maturity level of solutions, and the potential for “agent sprawl” within organizations. Security is also a major apprehension, with 74% of leaders viewing AI agents as a new attack vector.
Trust in the technology remains a significant hurdle. Only 19% of respondents expressed high or complete confidence in their vendors’ ability to provide adequate hallucination protection—mechanisms designed to prevent AI systems from generating incorrect or misleading outputs. Furthermore, a mere 13% strongly agreed that their organizations possess effective governance frameworks to manage the inherent risks associated with agentic AI.
Max Goss, a Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, commented on the findings, stating, “The hype around agentic AI continues to grow, with vendors positioning AI agents as the next phase of AI evolution that will address the shortfalls of more traditional GenAI assistants. Seventy-five percent of survey respondents said they were piloting, were deploying or had already deployed some form of AI agents into their organisation; however, concerns around governance, maturity and agent sprawl continue to hamper the deployment of truly agentic AI.”
The impact of AI agents on productivity also shows tempered expectations. Only 26% of leaders anticipate a transformative impact, while 53% foresee a significant but not transformative effect, and 20% expect only marginal gains.
Organizational alignment plays a crucial role in these perceptions. A striking 14% strongly agreed that there was clarity among IT, business users, and leadership regarding the problems AI should solve. Organizations with greater alignment were found to be 1.6 times more likely to view AI agents as transformative and over three times more likely to extract significant value from their generative AI tools. Goss underscored this, noting, “Alignment between IT, the business and executive leadership over what problems AI can solve and how to measure its value are critical for successful AI deployments, but we see that many organisations do not have this.”
Regarding deployment focus, less aligned organizations tend to prioritize general office productivity. In contrast, those with clearer goals are more inclined to focus on vertical use cases such as customer service, ERP, and sales. Analytics and business intelligence topped the list of domains expected to be most impacted by AI agents (64%), followed by customer service (55%) and office productivity (39%).
Looking ahead, the survey suggests that the widespread replacement of applications and workers by AI agents within the next two to four years is largely considered unlikely by most leaders. Only 12% strongly agreed that agents would replace applications, and just 7% strongly believed they would replace workers within that timeframe. However, when including those who “somewhat agreed,” these figures rise to 34% for application replacement and 29% for worker replacement, indicating a notable underlying sentiment of potential disruption. Goss remarked, “This is still significant for technology that has only been generally available for the last 12 months. It points to both the hype and the fear that exists around AI, specifically agentic AI.”
To navigate this evolving landscape, Gartner analysts recommend three key strategies for organizations:
1. Establish AI Agent Governance: Develop a platform-agnostic governance framework to mitigate agent sprawl and set clear policies for the safe and effective use of AI agents across diverse tools and domains.
2. Target High-Impact Domains: Prioritize AI agent deployments in areas with clear business value, such as customer service or analytics, especially if risks and returns in general office productivity scenarios remain uncertain. This requires strong alignment between IT and business teams.
3. Adopt a Multivendor Strategy: Given the current immaturity of AI agent technology, organizations should avoid relying on a single vendor. Instead, they should evaluate multiple solutions across their ERP, CRM, and digital workplace portfolios to ensure flexibility and access to the best-fit tools.
Also Read:
- Generative AI Sees Widespread Adoption, Yet Ethical Gaps and Nuanced Public Trust Remain Key Challenges
- Japan’s AI Ambition Meets Adoption Reality: A New Study Reveals Implementation Lag Despite Trillion-Yen Opportunity
The Gartner report concludes that agentic AI adoption is still in its nascent stages, with a critical focus now shifting towards establishing robust governance structures and identifying high-value use cases to drive meaningful enterprise integration.
