Dive Brief:
- Enterprises are transitioning away from single chatbots in favor of multiagent systems to solve customer pain points, with usage rising more than fourfold in four months, according to Databricks’ State of AI Agents report, published last week. The company gathered data from more than 20,000 global organizations using AI.
- Customer-facing tasks such as customer support, customer advocacy, onboarding and personalized marketing content represent 1 in 4 AI use cases, according to the report.
- Governance emerged as a key driver for AI adoption, Databricks found. Companies that actively use AI governance move 12x more AI projects from pilot to production than their counterparts.
Dive Insight:
Multiagent systems, where several AI agents collaborate to plan, execute and coordinate tasks, are gaining popularity as enterprises move AI from isolated pilots to integrated systems.
Customer engagement remains the primary testing ground for these tools. Databrick’s findings align with previous research from Deloitte Digital, which found nine in 10 customer experience leaders believe AI has the potential to improve CX.
For CIOs, early wins with AI are likely to come from customer-facing functions, where business value is easier to demonstrate and adoption barriers tend to be lower.
Yet while agentic tools can unlock new capabilities, they also bring inherent risks as enterprises grapple with the need to monitor systems’ autonomous controls. Databricks identified governance and model evaluations as keys to mitigating risks and advancing AI from pilot to production.
CIOs can help their companies scale AI use by deploying agents based on relevant data and business context, said Craig Wiley, VP of AI and product at Databricks.
"Today’s frontrunners in AI are making a conscious effort to choose the right multiagent system to answer their business-specific needs, using AI to support mundane and repetitive tasks, and investing in governance and evaluation tools to ensure compliance and safety," said Wiley in an email to CIO Dive.
Gaps in data readiness hinder AI adoption for enterprises, sinking $108 billion in wasted annual spend, according to Hitachi Vantara data published last week. Still, companies plan to continue pursuing AI efforts, with spend set to rise by 76% in the next two years.
