AI agents are “essential” for process automation & enhanced decision-making

Businesses view artificial intelligence (AI) agents as essential tools in process automation and enhanced decision-making. That’s according to a new study by technology giant and process mining provider IBM.

Enterprises are expected to significantly scale AI-enabled workflows – many driven by agentic AI – relying on them for process efficiency and cost reduction.

The AI Projects to Profits study, which surveyed 2,900 executives globally, revealed that respondents expect AI-enabled workflows to grow from 3 percent today to 25 percent by the end of 2025. With 70 percent of surveyed executives indicating that agentic AI is important to their organization's future, the research suggests that many organizations are actively encouraging experimentation.

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AI agents are the next evolution of intelligent automation

With the pace of digital transformation accelerating, enterprises can turn to AI agents as the next evolution of intelligent automation, IBM stated. As many as 83 percent of respondents expect AI agents to improve process efficiency and output by 2026, with 71 percent believing agents will autonomously adapt to changing workflows.

“We see more clients looking at agentic AI as the key to help them move past incremental productivity gains and actually gain business value from AI – especially when applied in their core processes like supply chain and HR,” said Francesco Brenna, VP and senior partner, AI integration services, IBM Consulting.

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Top 5 benefits of agentic AI systems

IBM cited the top five benefits of agentic AI systems that are driving adoption across industries:

1. Over two-thirds (69 percent) of executives surveyed say improved decision-making is the number one benefit of agentic AI systems.
2. 67 percent cite cost reduction through automation.
3. Almost half (47 percent) of leaders surveyed indicate competitive advantage as a top benefit of agentic AI systems.
4. Scaled employee experience is another top benefit, according to 44 percent of executives surveyed.
5. Improved talent retention (42 percent) is also a major benefit of implementing agentic AI systems.

Despite the benefits agentic AI offers, concerns with adoption are still present among leaders. Those surveyed indicate that concerns around data (49 percent), trust issues (46 percent) and skills shortages (42 percent) remain barriers to adoption for their organizations.

“This isn't about plugging an agent into an existing process and hoping for the best,” said Brenna. “It means re-architecting how the process is executed, redesigning the user experience, orchestrating agents end-to-end and integrating the right data to provide context, memory and intelligence throughout.”

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