Topic

Agents

How far companies have moved from AI assistants to AI agents that act on their own.

Most organizations report no AI agent use in each business functionPercent of respondents reporting no AI agent use at all, by function, 2025 (McKinsey survey data)

Manufacturing

91%

Supply chain/inventory management

88%

Strategy and corporate finance

85%

Human resources

82%

Software engineering

77%

Service operations

71%

69%

Knowledge management

66%

Source: Stanford HAI, The 2026 AI Index Report, 2026, p. 198, Figure 4.3.8.

Reports on agents

Bain · Sep 2026Technology Report 2026

Leaders expect a 95% developer productivity uplift in 1–2 years; current gains are 20–27%. Bain says AI moves bottlenecks into review and coordination.Executive survey

KPMG · Sep 2026Global AI Pulse Q3 2026: AI at scale: Accountability, resilience and economics

34% report significant employee adoption of AI agents, up from 25% in Q1 2026.Executive survey

EY · Sep 2026EY AI Risk and Governance Survey 2026

98% of large US public companies have AI governance policies, but 47% have skipped the process for urgent deployments and 36% reported a materially harmful AI incident.Executive survey

McKinsey · Aug 2026The state of AI in 2026: On the road to ROI

80% say AI improved their individual productivity, yet only about 6% are AI high performers, flat since 2025.Mixed survey

OpenAI · Aug 2026Enterprise Signals: What Frontier Firms Are Doing Differently

OpenAI usage data shows agent use overtaking chat in enterprises, and the heaviest-using firms pulling further ahead of typical ones.Usage data

Domino · Jul 2026The Fifth Annual Domino Enterprise AI Report

ROI lagging spend held at 57% for a second year, and 41% run agentic AI without governance in place.Executive survey

Microsoft · May 20262026 Work Trend Index: Agents, human agency, and the opportunity for every organization

Only 19% of AI users work where individual capability and organizational readiness reinforce each other (Microsoft's 'Frontier' zone).Worker survey

Deloitte · Jan 2026The State of AI in the Enterprise 2026: The untapped edge

34% are using AI to deeply transform the business; 30% are redesigning key processes; 37% use AI at a surface level.Executive survey

Kantata · Jan 2026State of the Professional Services Industry Report (AI agents survey)

89% agree future revenue growth will depend more on scaling AI than scaling headcount.Executive survey

McKinsey · Nov 2025The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation

Nearly two-thirds say their organizations have not yet begun scaling AI across the enterprise.Mixed survey

CAIS · Oct 2025Remote Labor Index: Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work

On 240 paid freelance projects worth over $140,000, the best agent tested produced client-acceptable work 2.5% of the time.Benchmark

OpenAI · Sep 2025GDPval: Evaluating AI Model Performance on Real-World Economically Valuable Tasks

Experts compared AI and human deliverables on real tasks from 44 occupations; the best model matched or beat the expert on 47.6%.Benchmark

Bain · Sep 2025Technology Report 2025

Two out of three software firms have rolled out generative AI tools, but developer adoption remains low.Analysis

OpenAI · Apr 2025A practical guide to building agents

Suggests agents where rules-based automation struggles: complex judgment calls, hard-to-maintain rule sets, or heavy unstructured data.Playbook

Anthropic · Dec 2024Building effective agents

Distinguishes workflows (predefined code paths) from agents (models directing their own process and tool use).Playbook

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14 reportsEvergreen playbooksGuides and frameworks without survey data behind them. Useful when you are ready to act.17 reportsBeyond usage: what AI actually doesExperiments, payroll data and spending records that measure outcomes, not whether people say they use AI.

Agents

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