Enterprise leaders across manufacturing, energy and utilities, aerospace and defense, transportation and logistics, construction, and telecommunications know exactly which strategic initiatives they want to pursue. Their teams can’t get out from under the day-to-day work long enough to pursue them. Nearly two-thirds of decision-makers report that manual, repetitive work consumes more than 40% of their employees’ time, and more than three-quarters have delayed or avoided a strategic initiative because their teams lacked the hours.
Agentic digital workers, AI that executes a multi-step operational process end-to-end rather than assisting a person through it one task at a time, are closing that gap. 66% of enterprises are likely or very likely to invest in digital workers within the next 12 months, and six IFS customers already run purpose-built digital workers in production, reclaiming dozens of hours per person per week on core procurement and order-to-pay workflows.
In our latest thought leadership study, Bridging the Capacity Gap: Why 66% of Enterprises Are Investing in Agentic Digital Workers, completed in partnership with IFS, Futurum Research surveyed 664 enterprise decision-makers and interviewed IT and operations leaders at six IFS customers running digital workers in production, covering what separates pilots that reach production from those that stall.
In this study, you will learn:
- Why the capacity crisis is real, and where it hits industrial enterprises hardest
- The gap between how much enterprises plan to invest in autonomous AI and how much they currently trust it to act without oversight
- The three capabilities — native integration, governance and auditability, and a human-in-the-loop exception model — that move digital worker pilots into production
- How six IFS customers used digital workers to reclaim hours, close data gaps, and outperform general-purpose AI assistants on operational work
If you are interested in learning more, be sure to download your copy of Bridging the Capacity Gap: Why 66% of Enterprises Are Investing in Agentic Digital Workers today.
Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
