Irish businesses expect the new generation of AI technology to drive productivity and reshape the workplace, a new survey has found, but they are still some way from fully capitalising on the developments.
The survey, by PwC, said AI agents - AI that can autonomously carry out tasks on a user’s behalf - could also help reduce costs, but further investment is needed if Irish companies want to keep up with their US peers.
The survey looked at the trends in AI agents across Irish organisations, comparing the results to a similar US study.
It found adoption and trust in the technology is lower in Ireland than in the US, offering what PwC described as a “pivotal opportunity” for Irish companies.
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Although 70 per cent of Irish organisations are planning to increase their AI-related budget in the year ahead, less than 10 per cent said they had broadly adopted the technology, and 83 per cent said there was “limited adoption” or that they were exploring AI agents. That is ahead of the 67 per cent that reported testing or partial implementation of AI at the beginning of the year.
But only 7 per cent said they had high trust in the technology when it came to carrying out activities such as conducting financial transactions and acting autonomously in customer interactions.
Although a little over half of Irish respondents said they had seen “measurable productivity gains” from using AI agents, only 38 per cent said it was translating into cost savings.
“The results highlight that Irish organisations are taking their time focusing on experimenting with AI agents, enabling them to understand and trust the technology, rather than rushing to full-scale adoption,” said David Lee, chief technology officer at PwC Ireland.
“Irish organisations are focusing on operational and support functions, while US companies are leveraging AI agents more aggressively across a wider range of business areas, including innovation and strategic functions.”
More than half of Irish business leaders said they thought AI agents would deliver a significant competitive advantage in the year ahead, behind the US figure of 73 per cent, and almost 30 per cent said they thought the technology could “materially change” their operating model. That was behind the 50 per cent recorded by the US survey.
Only 16 per cent of Irish companies are developing new agentic products and services, and 11 per cent said they were redesigning processes around AI agents, compared to 42 per cent in the US.
Among the barriers to adoption are data issues and integrating AI agents with legacy systems
“Organisations should broaden their mindset from seeing AI as an efficiency driver to a reinvention enabler,” Mr Lee said. “This will help organisations look beyond their back-office operations to their customer-facing revenue-generating activities.”
