Agentic AI: Boosting Productivity, Managing Risks

Organizations globally are exploring agentic AI strategies, with 97% already doing so. What's interesting is that nearly half of these organizations have moved the majority of their agentic AI projects from pilot to production. Australia is a leader in this area, pushing these initiatives into live environments. Here's the thing: agentic AI, which allows systems to act autonomously and make decisions, promises big productivity gains. However, it also introduces new risks because these systems need broad data access and deep system integration, expanding potential attack surfaces. This is especially true in regulated sectors like financial services and healthcare. The challenge for many is trying to scale AI within fragmented technology environments, which the State of AI Development report identifies as a major barrier. The solution involves building enterprise-grade agentic systems with embedded identity controls, access management, and continuous monitoring from the start. This approach allows AI to enforce governance by design, integrating policy and compliance checks directly into application lifecycles. The bottom line is that a platform-based approach helps manage how AI agents interact across complex enterprise systems.