Building an agentic AI strategy that pays off - without risking business failure

["Imagine you're a chief executive. Your AI strategy task force has just presented you with two strategic options. The first one is safe.

You can use agentic AI to reduce overhead and save 10% of overall human capital costs. The second choice is daring. You can increase growth tenfold by using agentic AI to transform your company's operations.", 'The superlatives are off the charts.

KPMG estimates that agentic AI will unlock $3 trillion in annual productivity gains. Accenture makes the case that agentic AI is "no less than a new type of capital," and "marks a shift in economic history." Last fall, Gartner said, "organizations have a crucial three- to six-month window to define their agentic AI product strategy, as the industry is at an inflection point."', "However, Gartner also warns that over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027 due to escalating costs, unclear business value, or inadequate risk controls. There are several reasons for these failures, including 'agent washing' by vendors who falsely portray existing products as agentic AI.

In reality, less than 13% of agentic AI vendors are actually shipping agentic products.", "Another pitfall is costs. Most AI implementations rely on external large language models for cognitive processing services provided by the likes of OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. These services get linked to your applications through an application programming interface (API).

As companies scale up their use of agentic AI, they're finding their cloud bills are ballooning.", 'Madhav Thattai, EVP & GM of Agentforce at Salesforce, advises that companies need a hybrid approach to agentic AI, with context, control, and governance designed in from day one. "Software used to be solely deterministic: same input, same output, easy to trust. AI agents break that model, with the same input producing different outcomes."', 'To reap the rewards of agentic AI installations, Accenture identified a tiered approach to AI projects.

Start by looking at your current business processes and identifying areas that are expensive to run, occur frequently, and follow fairly predictable patterns. Proceed carefully when using agentic solutions to replace manual labor, and start with non-critical systems where mistakes are manageable.']