More than 40% of agentic AI initiatives will be discontinued by the end of 2027 due to rising costs, limited business value, or insufficient risk management, according to research firm Gartner.

“Most agentic AI projects right now are early stage experiments or proof of concepts that are mostly driven by hype and are often misapplied,”

said Anushree Verma, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.

“This can blind organisations to the real cost and complexity of deploying AI agents at scale, stalling projects from moving into production. They need to cut through the hype to make careful, strategic decisions about where and how they apply this emerging technology.”

A Gartner poll conducted in January 2025 among 3,412 webinar participants revealed that 19% of respondents said their organisation had made significant investments in agentic AI, while 42% reported conservative investments.

A further 8% had made no investments, with the remaining 31% either undecided or adopting a wait-and-see approach.

Gartner also highlighted a growing trend of “agent washing”, where vendors rebrand existing tools, such as AI assistants, robotic process automation (RPA), and chatbots, as agentic AI, despite lacking substantial agentic functionality.

The firm estimates that only around 130 vendors in the current market genuinely offer agentic AI capabilities.

“Most agentic AI propositions lack significant value or return on investment (ROI), as current models don’t have the maturity and agency to autonomously achieve complex business goals or follow nuanced instructions over time,”

Verma said.

“Many use cases positioned as agentic today don’t require agentic implementations.”

Despite current limitations, agentic AI is viewed as a significant step forward in AI development.

Gartner projects that agentic systems could help improve resource use, automate more complex processes, and introduce new forms of innovation beyond conventional bots or assistants.

By 2028, Gartner expects that at least 15% of everyday workplace decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI, up from none in 2024.

It also forecasts that 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI features by 2028, compared to fewer than 1% in 2024.

Gartner recommends that organisations only pursue agentic AI where it delivers measurable value. Integrating agentic systems with existing infrastructure can be technically demanding, sometimes disrupting operations and necessitating costly changes.

In many instances, redesigning processes from the ground up may offer a more viable approach.

“To get real value from agentic AI, organisations must focus on enterprise productivity, rather than just individual task augmentation,”

Verma noted.

“They can start by using AI agents when decisions are needed, automation for routine workflows and assistants for simple retrieval. It’s about driving business value through cost, quality, speed and scale.”

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