AI agent adoption is moving from experimentation to enterprise standard, with organizations planning to sharply increase investment in agentic systems despite persistent integration and data challenges. According to the 2026 Connectivity Benchmark Report from Salesforce, MuleSoft, and Deloitte Digital, IT leaders expect AI agents to account for an average of 19% of IT budgets in the coming year.
The study, based on surveys and interviews with 1,050 global IT leaders, shows that enterprises now manage an average of 957 applications, rising to 1,057 applications among organizations furthest along in their agentic AI journey. Despite this scale, connectivity remains a major constraint: only 27% of applications are connected on average, increasing slightly to 32% for agentic leaders. As a result, 82% of IT leaders cite data integration as one of the biggest barriers to AI success.
Agent adoption itself is accelerating rapidly. Organizations currently run an average of 12 AI agents, a number expected to rise by 67% to 20 agents over the next two years. Nearly 89% of teams already use AI agents, deployed through a mix of pre-built SaaS agents, embedded platform agents, and custom-built systems. However, 50% of agents still operate in silos, increasing complexity and risk.
Challenges remain widespread. Almost all IT leaders (97%) report obstacles to agentic transformation, including risk and compliance concerns (42%), lack of internal AI expertise (41%), legacy infrastructure (37%), and poor integration across siloed systems (35%). Data quality alone is cited as the single biggest blocker by 25% of organizations.
Despite these hurdles, value creation is clear. 94% of respondents say AI agents significantly improve development speed and efficiency, enabling teams to focus on higher-value work. Organizations that achieve integrated, agent-driven environments are far more likely to report gains in employee experience, customer engagement, and operational visibility.
Source:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-agent-adoption-will-rise-in-2026/
