Generative AI is already deployed, agentic AI is in many organizations’ pipelinesAI in decision-making is expected to rise, but humans remain a crucial partInvestments in infrastructure and data will grow in 2026
New Capgemini research has quantified a trend we’ve spoken about so many times before – that AI has evolved from experimentation to implementation. And it’s clear, agentic AI is certainly proving to be more popular than generative AI.
Capgemini explained around two in five (38%) have already operationalized generative AI, but three in five (60%) have now started to explore agentic AI use cases, attracted to the promises of greater autonomy and productivity.
Unsurprisingly it’s China which leads the way, with nearly half of firms having piloted or deployed AI agents, ahead of the US and Europe.
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Where is AI heading next?
According to the data, cost savings aren’t the only way that businesses are measuring ROI. Many are now looking at other metrics like revenue growth, risk management, compliance, knowledge management, customer experience, and personalization.
“We have now entered a new, more pragmatic and realistic era of AI-driven transformation, focused on longer-term, enterprise-wide implementations, to improve not just productivity , but revenue, customer experience, risk management, innovation, or decision-making,” Capgemini Chief Innovation Officer Pascal Brier wrote.
Currently popular across emails and documents, meeting notes, and research and analysis, Capgemini expects AI to find a home in strategic thinking, too. More than half of C-suite execs already use AI to support their decision-making.
However the usual challenges remain, years after AI first hit the shelves at scale. Only two-fifths (41%) of CEOs, CFOs, and COOs have above-average trust in AI for decisions, with legal risks, security risks and a lack of explain-ability highlighted by sceptics.
Then, there’s the human touch. Only 1% believe AI could autonomously make strategic decisions in the next one to three years, with AI broadly seen as a tool to help leaders access information and data – not a replacement for human judgement.
Looking ahead, and with AI spend rising to 5% of annual budgets (up from 3% in 2025), 2026 will see investments across infrastructure, data foundations, governance, and workforce upskilling.
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