{"id":2057,"date":"2025-12-09T17:03:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=2057"},"modified":"2025-12-09T17:03:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:03:33","slug":"but-is-that-real-work-its-not-business-leaders-still-dont-trust-ai-agents-harvard-survey-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=2057","title":{"rendered":"‘But is that real work? It\u2019s not’ Business leaders still don’t trust AI agents, Harvard survey shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Businesses are increasingly testing the waters with AI agents, but trust issues persist.<\/p>\n

\n

A survey by integration platform Workato and Harvard Business Review of more than 600 tech leaders found that most respondents find agents more trustworthy outside of core business areas, while just 6% said they fully trust agents with essential end-to-end business processes. But that hasn\u2019t curbed interest: 86% said their companies plan to invest more in agentic AI over the next two years.<\/p>\n

More than two in five (43%) of respondents said they only trust agents with routine operational tasks, 39% said they delegate agents to \u201csupervised use cases or complex, noncore processes,\u201d and 8% said they don\u2019t trust agents with business operations at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis report is almost exactly the conversation I had with [CEO friends],\u201d Workato Chief Information Officer Carter Busse told us. \u201cWhen I read it, I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my gosh, this actually is real data [for] the conversations I\u2019m having where, \u2018Yeah, we bought all these Chats and Claudes and Geminis and people can summarize their emails and look up stuff in their calendar and help me write a nice letter.\u2019 But is that real work? It\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

As AI systems that purport to perform tasks autonomously have sashayed into vogue in the corporate world, trusting these systems to handle important business functions has become a\u00a0sticking point. That\u2019s especially true as agents are\u00a0integrated\u00a0into various workplace platforms through protocols.<\/p>\n

Busse said many agents currently in use might perform simple tasks like creating IT tickets. But those that can handle more complicated processes are still in their earliest stages of adoption, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very, very early,\u201d Busse said. \u201cWhen I think of agents, I think of real work\u2026A real work agent does a multistep, complex process that\u2019s trusted. That\u2019s going to take a long time to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also found that agents do not yet meet expectations across all measures surveyed, which included \u201cimproved organizational productivity\/efficiency,\u201d \u201cimproved customer experience,\u201d and \u201cincreased revenue.\u201d Among the biggest roadblocks were cybersecurity and privacy worries (which 31% of respondents cited), \u201cconcerns about data output quality\u201d (23%), and that \u201cbusiness processes [are] not ready for automation\u201d (22%).<\/p>\n

As an integration platform itself, Workato has an interest in pitching orchestration\u2014the coordination of specialized agents\u2014as a solution for some of these business challenges. Standardized protocols that let agents communicate with one another and with common business tools have been gaining traction.<\/p>\n

Workato also uses agents internally to do things like prepping sales reps for calls using Salesforce and Gong data, or monitoring and creating plans to combat clients\u2019 reduced usage of the platform, according to Busse.<\/p>\n

He said to expect to continue to see businesses adopting agents in 2026, but widespread use of multi-step complex agents may be \u201ctwo, three years away.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report was originally published by <\/em>Tech Brew.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#real #work #Business #leaders #dont #trust #agents #Harvard #survey #shows<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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