Signal AI agents acting independently at 25% of organisations, 70% expected by end-2026

Summary

IBM reports that a quarter of executives say their organisation already had AI agents acting on their own during 2025. Seventy percent expect to have that capability by the end of 2026, which would be a sharp jump within a year. IBM presents this as evidence that autonomous agents are a present reality rather than a distant idea. It pairs the finding with confidence among chief data officers and with the caution that only about 40% of agentic initiatives met objective success metrics. The signal therefore points to fast adoption of independent agents alongside an unresolved question of how well they perform.