Market Trends: Enterprise AI Agent Adoption

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Executive Summary

This report examines how agentic AI is emerging as the next evolution of enterprise intelligence, moving organizations beyond predictive analytics and copilots, towards AI agents that can perceive context, reason towards goals and act across systems under governance. It defines a clear framework for agentic AI, spanning a layered technology stack, five levels of agent sophistication and five levels of agentic workflows, using Verdantix survey data to map where enterprises really are on that maturity curve. The analysis shows uneven but accelerating adoption across regions, sectors and functions, with Asia and Europe scaling cautiously, North America highly experimental but under-scaled, and emerging markets using agents for digital catch-up. The report also compares five dominant adoption models and highlights the structural shifts in orchestration, security and commercial models that will determine which enterprises capture the ‘agentic dividend’ from 2025 to 2030.

Summary for decision-makers
Agentic AI is the next evolution of intelligence
Vendors and buyers need a clear view of how agentic AI progresses across stack, agents and workflows
The layered agentic AI tech stack underpins autonomous enterprise workflows
Enterprise agents fall into clearly differentiated levels, rather than one uniform category
Agentic workflows evolve from isolated tasks to integrated, cross-functional value streams
Agentic AI forces a rethink of firms’ people, processes and technology playbooks
AI agent pilots are rising as operational pressure collides with technological advances
Agentic scaling ambitions run up against the hard realities of complexity and risk
Agentic AI is entering its first real scaling test
Geographic patterns reveal uneven momentum in scaling agentic AI
Sector-specific economics and regulation determine whether agentic AI plateaus or scales
Agentic AI races ahead in structured, data-rich operations, but hits the brakes in brand-exposed and oversight-heavy functions
Agentic AI success emerges from aligning adoption models with organizational context and ambition
Built-in suite agents bring fast deployment and quick wins, with inherited security
Vertical AI specialists deliver pre-built agents that trade deep customization for continuous vendor-driven innovation
Enterprise AI platforms enable highly tailored agents with strong governance, but require greater internal ownership
Open-source and self-hosted stacks maximize architectural freedom while shifting full security and the reliability burden in-house
Services-led partners deliver end-to-end agentic transformation
From 2025 to 2030, agentic AI will rewire how enterprises work, govern and create value
Five structural shifts will decide who captures the agentic AI dividend

Figure 1. Hierarchical definitions of AI agents, multi-agent systems, and agentic AI
Figure 2.
The technology stack of enterprise agentic AI
Figure 3.
Levels of AI agent sophistication
Figure 4.
Levels of agentic workflows
Figure 5.
Drivers of and barriers to AI agent adoption
Figure 6.
The extent of regional autonomous AI agent rollout
Figure 7.
The extent of autonomous AI agent rollout across sectors
Figure 8.
The importance of AI agent capabilities and configurability in software purchasing decisions across sectors
Figure 9.
AI agent piloting is widespread across industries and functions
Figure 10.
Scaling AI agents from pilot to production is uncommon
Figure 11.
How AI agent adoption routes differ across key criteria

About the Authors

Henry Kirkman

Henry Kirkman

Industry Analyst

Henry is an Industry Analyst at Verdantix. His current research agenda focuses on quality management, field service management and industrial applications of AI, including Gen...

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Chris Sayers

Chris Sayers

Senior Manager

Chris is a Senior Manager at Verdantix. His current research agenda targets enterprise AI integration and adoption, AI market trends and agentic AI. Chris joined Verdantix in ...

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