AI agents are expanding from pilots to broad deployment across enterprises. Once limited to well-defined and rule-based tasks, today’s agents can reason, make decisions and interact with each other. As adoption accelerates, organisations are realising the critical importance of enterprise readiness.
Agentic AI leaders share key characteristics. Data quality and integration are treated as strategic infrastructure. Good governance and oversight are embedded from the outset. Business objectives are well-defined and key performance metrics are measured. Lastly, they view agents as a means to support and strengthen the workforce. Taken together, these foundations enable agents to act reliably, scale safely and generate value. To support decision-makers, this Economist Impact whitepaper, sponsored by Oracle and KPMG, draws on in-depth interviews with AI leaders to chart agentic AI adoption and strategy across functions, understand best practices and pitfalls, and identify the shared traits that define success.