The state of AI in the enterprise
How the leading edge is moving from AI experimentation to agentic operations
Gaining a competitive edge in the AI-first era of business
Four years into the AI revolution, AI tools are becoming ubiquitous across the enterprise.
We surveyed 1,600+ IT leaders across four major markets and multiple industries. The results are striking: 83% report running AI agents, and 80% say they’ve seen ROI from AI. But just 1 in 9 “early-stage AI” firms report significant ROI against half of leading edge ones. The difference lies in the three foundations on which the agentic enterprise is being built: content, governance, and flexibility. Read the report to see what the leaders did that the rest haven’t — and why it’s already paying off.
AI changes work, teams and roles
While the common narrative warns of widespread job displacement, the reality of enterprise AI may turn out to be quite different. 58% of surveyed organizations anticipate growing their workforces over the next three years; that figure surges to 79% among leading-edge companies. The future of the AI-enabled enterprise isn't shrinking; it’s restructuring around a capable, augmented workforce.
Enterprise content becomes the AI bottleneck
Almost all organizations agree that AI agents need access to company-specific content to be effective. But only a third of them have successfully connected agents to that context across many use cases.
Governance makes scaled AI impact possible
Nearly half of organizations have already had an AI-related data exposure incident; in the past year, the share reporting established or advanced frameworks rose from 24% to 73%. The gap is instrumentation: only about a third have comprehensive visibility across sanctioned and unsanctioned use; about a third have formal standards for how agents access company data.
AI leaders are betting on platform flexibility
68% of respondents are concerned about being locked into a single AI provider. Respondents now use an average of 3.3 AI tools, and 79% now say it’s important or critical that agents operate “headlessly” — connecting directly to systems, APIs, and data sources without a human interface. The leading edge is building so it doesn’t have to bet on which tools win.