AI agents could save scaled adopters $382 million, but only $76 million for slow adopters
Most businesses agree AI agents would give them a competitive advantage
Businesses should build in ethics and trust into their processes

AI agents could generate up to $450 billion in economic value by 2028 through a combination of revenue gains and cost savings for businesses, but not all businesses are positioned equally to reap the rewards, new research has claimed.

The report from Capgemini explains how scaled AI agent adopters could see a $382 million boost over the next three years, compared with just $76 million for lower-scale adopters.

Alarmingly, the global average of organizations who have fully scaled AI agent deployment is just 2%, and in the UK, it’s even less, at 1%.

To benefit from AI you have to scale it properly

The research found that nearly half (47%) of UK businesses are piloting AI agents or testing new use cases, with around one-fifth (19%) having partially implemented them already. Most (93%) agree that scaling AI agents would give them a competitive advantage over the next year, with customer service, IT, and sales most likely to realize the biggest rewards.

However, now that many companies are going from experimentation to implementation, trust in autonomous AI agents is dropping. Just 27% of the global participants now trust agentic AI, compared with 43% last year. UK trust is slightly higher than the global average, but the drop from 50% to 32% remains in line with the global sentiment.

“Central to this transformation is the need to build trust in AI by ensuring it is developed responsibly, with ethics and safety baked in from the outset,” Capgemini CTO and Chief Product Officer Franck Greverie explained.

Moreover, the same key challenges are preventing companies from scaling AI – four in five organizations lack mature AI infrastructure, with fewer than one in five reporting high data readiness. As we know, AI is only as good as the data it uses. Other barriers include low internal AI literacy and privacy.