🤖 AI Maturity Gap: Companies Struggle with Autonomous AI Implementation

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🤔 Are Companies Ready for Agentic AI?​

According to market research commissioned by industrial AI software provider IFS, the most common areas for agentic AI in manufacturing are material planning, customer orders, and inventory management. However, companies are facing capacity issues when it comes to investing in these technologies.

⏳ Repetitive Tasks Lead to Wasted Time​

Futurum's August 2026 report reveals that industrial workers spend 41% of their time on repetitive tasks. This creates a capacity gap that companies are trying to overcome with various solutions.

🚀 Investment in Digital Workers Accelerates​

The research shows that the use of "digital workers" is accelerating, with 66% of businesses considering investing in digital workers within the next 12 months. However, this interest in agentic AI outpaces companies' ability to implement the technology. This creates a maturity gap that "separates ambition from execution."

📉 Low Implementation Rates​

Despite investment plans, according to the research, only 10% of businesses currently run mostly agentic AI operations. Although companies want to solve the employee capacity gap with agentic AI and digital workers, their own capacity is often insufficient to solve this problem. More than 75% of company leaders state that they have postponed a strategic initiative due to their teams' lack of capacity, while less than 6% of leaders trust AI to act autonomously.

⚡ Capacity Shortage in the Energy and Utilities Sector​

According to the Futurum report, energy and utilities firms feel the capacity shortage most acutely: 52% frequently postpone initiatives due to limited capacity; this is the highest rate surveyed.

💡 Use Cases for Agentic AI​

According to IFS and Futurum, the maturity gap indicates a lack of a reliable bridge between the autonomous outcomes businesses desire and the AI they can trust. While operational priorities vary by sector, each reflects a specific capacity constraint that AI can fill; for example, repetitive tasks that consume employees' time.

• For Manufacturers: The most important use case was material planning and coordination, where AI could optimize material, inventory, and production schedules. This was followed by customer orders, and then inventory and replenishment.
  
• For Energy and Utilities: The most important use case was knowledge and documentation to capture and organize critical information for the workforce. This was followed by asset performance and work order scheduling.
  

📈 Success Stories​

Futurum identified some of the current and projected success rates achieved by IFS customers using digital workers:

• CDF: Has a live inventory replenishment agent and a pending customer order manager agent. The measured result of these applications was that 20% of purchasing personnel's time was freed up for other tasks.
  
• AirBoss: Uses a customer order manager digital worker. The report predicts that when the digital worker reaches full production, 40% of orders will be processed without human interaction.
  

🗣️ Statement from Somya Kapoor, CEO of IFS Loops​

Somya Kapoor, CEO of IFS Loops, said, "The capacity gap is a high-risk problem in industrial operations. When a purchase order, a maintenance schedule, or a supplier delivery is delayed because there aren't enough hours in the day for the employee, the cost manifests as downtime, missed deliveries, or idle equipment. Closing this requires more than general-purpose AI." Kapoor stated that digital workers designed for the business and integrated into the systems that run the business enable teams to regain capacity rather than address the shortfall.

🚀 IFS's Digital Workers​

IFS highlights this research less than a year after launching IFS Loops, an AI-based "workforce" programmed with over 50 autonomous capabilities to help industrial organizations. The agentic AI product aims to free up the workforce from more mundane tasks, targeting manufacturing, service industries, energy and utilities, telecommunications, aerospace and defense, and construction sectors.