For enterprises, AI agents offer a compelling opportunity to automate complex knowledge work and deliver faster, smoother outcomes. Yet the current reality of AI agent use is very different.
While many organizations state they are using AI agents, far fewer can deploy them as a dependable capability across the business. That disconnect has created an agentic AI vision–reality gap. In fact, our 2026 State of Agentic Orchestration & Automation report reveals nearly three-quarters (73%) of organizations say there is a significant gap between their vision for agentic AI and the reality today.
The vision-reality gap
AI agents promise to extend automation into complex knowledge work that previously required human judgement alone. And while 71% of organizations say they are currently using AI agents, our report finds that only 11% of agentic AI use cases reached production over the last year.
Trust remains a key barrier to wider adoption. In the report, 84% cite the business risk of using AI in day-to-day processes when IT does not have appropriate controls in place, 80% point to a lack of transparency around how AI is used within business processes and 66% cite compliance concerns. Half of respondents (50%) believe untamed agentic AI risks fanning the flames of poorly implemented processes and automations.
Without the right control layer, agents remain hard to trust in business-critical processes, particularly in regulated environments where transparency, auditability and governance are non-negotiable.
The limits of siloed agents
As a result of these concerns, 80% of organizations say most of their AI agents are chatbots or assistants that summarize or answer questions, rather than handling mission-critical tasks. Almost half (48%) also state they currently use AI agents in silos rather than as part of end-to-end processes.
If agentic AI remains stuck in pilot territory or confined to isolated use cases, organizations will capture only a fraction of its potential value. The bigger opportunity comes when agents are embedded in orchestrated business processes, enabling teams to redesign customer journeys and optimize internal operations with far greater consistency, control and impact.
Agentic orchestration is the way forward
According to our report, 90% of IT leaders recognize AI needs to be orchestrated like any other endpoint within automated business processes to ensure compliance with regulations, while 88% say AI needs to be orchestrated across business processes if they are to get maximum benefit from their investments.
This is where agentic orchestration becomes the operating model for closing the vision–reality gap. Deterministic orchestration has always established structured guardrails. Dynamic orchestration patterns leverage reasoning across AI agents, people, and systems in end-to-end processes. By blending deterministic and dynamic orchestration, processes can adapt in real time, while teams still retain control. This is what enterprise agentic automation looks like in practice and is how organizations will transform today’s AI pilots into resilient, business-critical capabilities.
Learn more
Download the full 2026 State of Agentic Orchestration & Automation report here!
You are also invited to join our webinar, “Closing the Gap Between Agentic AI Vision and Reality: How to move AI agents from pilots to production for true end-to-end automation in 2026,” on Feb. 12, at 10:00 a.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. CET.
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