Business adoption of AI agents tripled this year - as measurable ROI emerges

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The average number of AI agents activated per organization increased nearly threefold since 2025, according to the 2026 Agentic Enterprise Index , new research from Salesforce that analyzes aggregate AI usage data from the company's Agentforce platform.

The index analyzes the activity of AI engagements in production for five consecutive quarters of 400 real businesses leverage AI agents to drive ROI. In addition, the index report includes a survey of nearly 5,000 respondents across nine key markets.

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The biggest takeaways from the Agentic Enterprise Index report are:

Enterprise AI agents have moved from experimental tests to rapid, production-scale deployment. The average number of AI agents in production grew from five in February 2025 to 13 agents in April 2026. In addition to expanding the use AI agents, businesses have also increased efficiency in terms of how long it takes to add a new agent to production. The time to create a new agent has decreased by 53%, going from 4 days in early 2025 to 1.9 days today.

Agentic adoption in organizations is growing rapidly

AI agents are becoming smarter and more capable. Businesses saw a 31% increase in the compound monthly growth rate of agents across five quarters. The average share of agentic action per month grew from zero in early 2025 to 15% by April of 2026. The steady-state growth of agentic actions reveals the continued improvement in agentic skills and in their ability to execute and manage complex tasks.

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The index report revealed that AI agents are evolving beyond simple text generation and can now execute complex, multi-step business logic across various systems and boundaries. In 2025, the average number of unique actions per agent was 2; today, that number is 4. In the retail industry, the peak average unique action per agent is 9, which translates to consumer expectations rising to agentic scale intelligence, speed, and scale across all touchpoints.

The expanded skill set of AI agents also means they can now take on secondary roles. Agents are handling a greater scope than before and becoming more capable of handling cross-functional activity over time. The share of secondary functions grew for 1% to 6% of functions in the past year.