- Cisco report finds 80% of executives see agentic AI as critical to business success by 2027
- Jobs are not being lost to AI, they are just undergoing major changes
- 55% will work with AI agents, 60% of the workforce will need to be upskilled
New data from a joint Cisco and Omdia report has claimed that four out of five executives believe their company’s survival may depend on agent AI as early as 2027, with more than half (55%) of the workforce expected to collaborate with AI agents in the next two years.
But while business leaders recognize AI’s potential, many have yet to lay the right foundations to truly take advantage of it, and legacy infrastructure has proven to be one of the biggest obstacles.
Cisco says more robust, secure and agile networks are needed to support AI tools and agents working across disparate infrastructure, including apps, cloud and data.
Agentic AI is almost here on the scale
Portfolio Strategy SVP Jeff Schultz described agent AI as “the catalyst for the most significant workforce transformation in a generation” and emphasis on “the transformation.” Because the report details how AI’s impact on the workforce is shifting from job elimination to job evolution, which is good news for humans after all.
Nearly two in three (65%) expect new job categories to emerge within the next three to five years, and many have yet to appoint Chief AI Officers to the C-suite level.
But it’s not free – three out of five employees need upskilling “beyond rapid engineering, to learn how to monitor, audit and trust autonomous agents.” Schultz described this change as both “technological” and “cultural.”
The report adds that agent AI now accounts for more than a third (37%) of early adopter technology budgets, with 43% already reporting meaningful ROI and 39% expecting returns within just one year.
“How technology leaders respond today will shape the relative success of their organizations tomorrow,” Schultz concluded, noting that companies’ first steps should be to set up the right infrastructure and foundation before blindly going all-in on AI.
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