{ "question": "How many companies use AI agents?", "answer": "62% of large US organizations ($1 billion or more in revenue) are building, deploying or developing AI agents, KPMG found in its survey of 314 leaders from 24 July to 25 August 2026, up from 53% the quarter before. Fewer are scaling them: 40% of respondents at large organizations and 22% at smaller ones (McKinsey, 2026).", "period": "Q3 2026", "key_numbers": [ { "value": "62%", "label": "Large US organizations building, deploying or developing AI agents", "note": "KPMG AI Quarterly Pulse, Q3 2026", "stat": "ai-agents/orgs-building-deploying-ai-agents" }, { "value": "40%", "label": "Respondents at $1B+ organizations scaling AI agents", "note": "McKinsey State of AI, May-Jun 2026", "stat": "ai-agents/large-orgs-scaling-ai-agents" }, { "value": "22%", "label": "Respondents at smaller organizations scaling AI agents", "note": "McKinsey State of AI, May-Jun 2026", "stat": "ai-agents/smaller-orgs-scaling-ai-agents" }, { "value": "25%", "label": "Large US organizations developing or implementing multi-agent systems", "note": "KPMG AI Quarterly Pulse, Q3 2026", "stat": "ai-agents/orgs-multi-agent-systems" }, { "value": "63%", "label": "Large US organizations that require a person to validate agent outputs", "note": "KPMG AI Quarterly Pulse, Q1 2026", "stat": "ai-agents/orgs-require-human-validation-agents" } ], "tables": [ { "id": "kpmg-pulse", "title": "AI agents at large US organizations ($1B+ revenue), KPMG AI Quarterly Pulse", "columns": [ "Measure", "Share", "Survey" ], "rows": [ [ "Building, deploying or developing AI agents", "62%", "Q3 2026" ], [ "Same measure, quarter before", "53%", "Q2 2026" ], [ "Actively deploying AI agents (older wording)", "54%", "Q1 2026" ], [ "Developing or implementing multi-agent systems (6% in each of the two quarters before)", "25%", "Q3 2026" ], [ "Defined high-risk uses where agents may not decide alone", "49%", "Q3 2026" ], [ "Build controls into agents plus monitoring (43% two quarters before)", "30%", "Q3 2026" ], [ "Require human validation of agent outputs (22% in Q1 2025)", "63%", "Q1 2026" ] ], "row_ids": [ "kpmg-building", "kpmg-building-q2", "kpmg-deploying-q1", "multi-agent", "no-autonomy", "controls-monitoring", "human-validation" ], "note": "Q3 2026: 314 US C-suite and business leaders, 24 Jul to 25 Aug 2026. Q1 2026: 237 leaders, 17 Feb to 17 Mar 2026. KPMG changes its wording between quarters.", "source": "kpmg" }, { "id": "mckinsey-by-size", "title": "Scaling and experimenting with AI agents, by organization size (McKinsey State of AI)", "columns": [ "Measure", "Large ($1B+)", "Smaller", "All respondents" ], "rows": [ [ "Scaling AI agents, 2026", "40%", "22%", "-" ], [ "Scaling AI agents, 2025", "27%", "22%", "-" ], [ "Scaling an agentic AI system somewhere in the enterprise, 2025", "-", "-", "23%" ], [ "At least experimenting with AI agents, 2025", "-", "-", "62%" ], [ "Scaling software coding agents, 2026", "31%", "-", "About 2 in 10" ], [ "Decided against buying software because agentic coding tools could build it, 2026", "-", "-", "32%" ] ], "row_ids": [ "scaling-2026", "scaling-2025", "scaling-agentic-2025", "experimenting-2025", "coding-agents", "skipped-software" ], "note": "2026: 1,719 online respondents in 97 nations, 4 May to 8 Jun 2026. 2025: 1,993 respondents in 105 nations, 25 Jun to 29 Jul 2025. McKinsey says the smaller-organization share \"remained flat at 22 percent\", so its 2025 value is also 22%. The 2025 values are as restated in the 2026 report. \"About 2 in 10\" applies to coding agents only; McKinsey gives no all-respondent share for scaling agents in general.", "source": "mckinsey" }, { "id": "gartner", "title": "Gartner: investment in and deployment of AI agents", "columns": [ "Measure", "Share", "Survey" ], "rows": [ [ "Made significant investments in agentic AI", "19%", "Webinar poll, Jan 2025" ], [ "Made conservative investments in agentic AI", "42%", "Webinar poll, Jan 2025" ], [ "Made no investments in agentic AI", "8%", "Webinar poll, Jan 2025" ], [ "Have deployed AI agents", "17%", "CIO and Technology Executive Survey, 2026" ], [ "Expect to deploy AI agents within the next two years", "More than 60%", "CIO and Technology Executive Survey, 2026" ] ], "row_ids": [ "gartner-significant", "gartner-conservative", "gartner-none", "gartner-deployed", "gartner-expect" ], "note": "The January 2025 poll is of 3,412 webinar attendees, not a random sample. The 2026 CIO survey figures are from Gartner's 2026 Hype Cycle for Agentic AI article, which does not give the sample size.", "source": "gartner" }, { "id": "pwc", "title": "PwC AI agent survey of US senior executives (May 2025)", "columns": [ "Measure", "Share" ], "rows": [ [ "Say AI agents are already being adopted in their company", "79%" ], [ "Of adopters: agents deliver measurable value through higher productivity", "66%" ] ], "row_ids": [ "pwc-adopted", "pwc-value" ], "note": "300 US senior executives. \"Being adopted\" includes agent features built into everyday business apps.", "source": "pwc" }, { "id": "history", "title": "Large US organizations building or deploying AI agents, by quarter (KPMG)", "columns": [ "Quarter", "Share", "KPMG wording" ], "rows": [ [ "Q1 2025", "11%", "Deployed at least some AI agents" ], [ "Q2 2025", "33%", "Deployed at least some AI agents" ], [ "Q3 2025", "42%", "Deployed at least some AI agents" ], [ "Q4 2025", "26%", "Agent deployment (KPMG calls it a reported decline)" ], [ "Q1 2026", "54%", "Actively deploying AI agents" ], [ "Q2 2026", "53%", "Building, deploying or developing AI agents" ], [ "Q3 2026", "62%", "Building, deploying or developing AI agents" ] ], "note": "KPMG changed the measure three times, so only Q1 to Q4 2025 and Q2 to Q3 2026 are like-for-like changes. The 2025 quarters asked 130 leaders; Q1 2026 asked 237 and Q3 2026 asked 314, all at US organizations with $1 billion or more in revenue.", "source": "kpmg" } ], "sources": [ { "name": "AI Quarterly Pulse Survey", "publisher": "KPMG LLP (US)", "type": "survey", "url": "https://kpmg.com/" }, { "name": "The State of AI (McKinsey Global Survey)", "publisher": "McKinsey & Company", "type": "survey", "url": "https://www.mckinsey.com/" }, { "name": "Gartner newsroom", "publisher": "Gartner, Inc.", "type": "research", "url": "https://www.gartner.com/" }, { "name": "PwC research (Global AI Jobs Barometer, AI agent survey)", "publisher": "PwC", "type": "research", "url": "https://www.pwc.com/" } ], "content_changed_on": "2026-10-30", "page_url": "https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/ai-agents/ai-agent-adoption", "csv_url": "https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/ai-agents/ai-agent-adoption.csv" }