77% of Enterprises Have Paid a Price for Ungoverned AI Agents

New research from Redwood Software finds agentic AI is scaling faster than the integration, ownership and governance necessary to run it with confidence.

VIENNA, Va., Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Redwood Software™, the leading orchestration platform for the autonomous enterprise, today released its "Enterprise benchmarks in AI and agentic orchestration 2026" report, based on a survey of 300 senior technology, risk and AI leaders and practitioners. Data was collected via a panel by the independent research firm Leger Opinion.

The research reveals that enterprises are adopting AI faster than they can connect, govern and trust it at scale. While many are expanding AI use and accelerating agentic deployment, responsibility is split across teams, leaving integration, visibility and governance enforcement inconsistent. Read the full report to explore the findings and benchmark your organization's AI and agentic maturity.

Highlights from the research

• 77% have experienced a negative consequence from an ungoverned AI agent, with unexpected cloud costs the most common, followed by operational disruption and compliance issues
• Agentic AI is catching up to AI overall: 89% increased agentic deployment in the past year, and 54% report scaling or mature agentic adoption 
• 82% agree that existing systems are bigger obstacles to scaling AI than a lack of strategy, and only 42% report a strong ability to connect AI agents to legacy or core systems
• No single function owns agentic AI: responsibility is split among IT Operations, dedicated AI or automation teams and software engineering
• 54% say they are fully prepared to orchestrate AI across existing systems, but only 42% have a centralized registry of deployed agents, and just 51% have real-time monitoring of agent activity
• Redwood customers are 1.4x as likely as those who do not use Redwood solutions to have a fully prepared, funded plan to connect AI to existing workloads and 1.2x as likely to report a strong ability to connect AI to both legacy and cloud/SaaS applications

Key takeaways

• Existing systems, not strategy, are holding AI back, as connecting AI agents to legacy and core systems remains the hardest barrier for enterprises to clear
• Ownership of agentic AI is fragmented, so no single team or individual is accountable for how agents connect, behave and answer to governance
• Enterprises are already absorbing business risk from AI agents, with deployment outpacing governance and visibility
• Leaders are extending autonomy they can't yet fully see, handing business-critical work to agents that aren't consistently governed or monitored

Respondents were also clear about what would help them expand agentic AI with confidence: 62% pointed to better observability or real-time visibility, while 58% cited a proven ability to integrate AI agents with legacy or core systems.

"The demo is the easy part. The real test begins when an AI agent touches a production system, a financial transaction or a customer interaction," said Charles Crouchman, Chief Product Officer at Redwood. "At that point, governance can't live in a policy document or wait for a post-incident review. An orchestration platform has to enforce it inside the process, setting boundaries for the agent and bringing in human judgment before an exception becomes a business problem."

Access the report

The "Enterprise benchmarks in AI and agentic orchestration 2026" provides detailed benchmarks on enterprise AI maturity, agentic AI deployment and ownership, integration, ROI, governance and more. Read the full report here.

About Redwood Software

Redwood Software is the leading orchestration platform for the autonomous enterprise, driving business transformation at the lowest total cost of ownership. Redwood empowers organizations to intelligently automate and orchestrate mission-critical business and IT processes across complex ERP, hybrid cloud, data and emerging agentic AI systems. Through its SaaS-first automation fabric — with AI embedded across the automation lifecycle — Redwood accelerates the path to autonomous operations. Backed by 30 years of experience and trusted by more than 50% of the Fortune 50, Redwood helps organizations unlock human potential to focus on innovation, growth and what's next. For more information, visit www.redwood.com. Follow Redwood Software on LinkedIn, @Redwood Software.

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Liz Reilly
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