Agentic AI Gains Traction but 86% of Enterprises Expect Heightened Risks: Infosys Report With 95 per cent of enterprises facing incidents, the study reveals wide gap between AI adoption and responsible AI readiness, exposing most enterprises to reputational risks and financial loss

The advent of agentic AI is giving rise to new risks with 86 per cent of the surveyed executives believing that it will introduce new risks and compliance issues, according to the latest study by Infosys Knowledge Institute (IKI), the research arm of Infosys.

The report 'Responsible Enterprise AI in the Agentic Era' surveyed over 1,500 business executives and interviewed 40 senior decision-makers across Australia, France, Germany, UK, US, and New Zealand. The findings show that while 78 per cent of companies see responsible AI (RAI) as a business growth driver, only 2 per cent have adequate RAI controls in place to safeguard against reputational risk and financial loss.

The report analyzed the effects of risks from poorly implemented AI, such as privacy violations, ethical violations, bias or discrimination, regulatory non-compliance, inaccurate or harmful predictions, among others. It found that 77 per cent of organisations reported financial loss, and 53 per cent of organisations have suffered reputational impact from such AI related incidents.

The report also revealed that 95 per cent of C-suite and director-level executives have reported AI-related incidents in the past two years. 39 per cent characterised the damage experienced from such AI issues as "severe" or "extremely severe".

78 per cent of senior leaders see RAI as aiding their revenue growth and 83 per cent said that future AI regulations would boost, rather than inhibit, the number of future AI initiatives. However, on average companies believe they are underinvesting in RAI by 30 per cent.

With the scale of enterprise AI adoption far outpacing readiness, companies must urgently shift from treating RAI as a reactive compliance obligation to embracing it proactively as a strategic advantage. To help organisations build scalable, trusted AI systems that fuel growth while mitigating risk, Infosys recommends the following actions: Learn from the leaders, blend product agility with platform governance, embed RAI guardrails into secure AI platforms, and establish a proactive RAI office.

"Drawing from our extensive experience working with clients on their AI journeys, we have seen firsthand how delivering more value from enterprise AI use cases, would require enterprises to first establish a responsible foundation built on trust, risk mitigation, data governance, and sustainability. This also means emphasizing ethical, unbiased, safe, and transparent model development. To realize the promise of this technology in the agentic AI future, leaders should strategically focus on platform and product-centric enablement, and proactive vigilance of their data estate. Companies should not discount the important role a centralized RAI office plays as enterprise AI scales, and new regulations come into force," said Balakrishna D.R., EVP – Global Services Head, AI and Industry Verticals, Infosys.