There is an increasing trend in agentic AI prioritization among software executives, with 93% of organizations already developing—or planning to develop—their own custom AI agents.
This is according to a report from OutSystems, which is based on a survey of 550 software executives whose companies span IT consultancy services, manufacturing, banking, financial services and insurance among others. This survey was conducted between April 25 and May 5, 2025 across the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France, Canada, Australia, India and Germany.
“In a near future, AI agents acting as highly specialized teams will continuously monitor business needs, identify opportunities, and proactively refine software solutions, allowing developers and business leaders to play a more creative role and focus on strategic priorities,” said Woodson Martin, CEO of OutSystems.
Findings show that more than two thirds of respondents reported increased developer productivity and improved software quality through fewer bugs. Among them, 62% also reported improved scalability of development efforts, and 60% pointed to gains in enhanced testing and quality assurance (QA) efficiency.
With AI acting as the catalyst for a reimagined software development process, these advancements go beyond efficiency gains. They’re empowering developers to shift their focus from repetitive tasks to crafting unique solutions in partnership with business leaders and solving more complex user challenges, leading to the creation of new roles and improved innovative agility and scalability.
The report also found that increases in and experimentation with agentic AI over the next 24 months will spur workforce transformation and innovation throughout the organization. The majority of software executives (69%), anticipate AI will introduce new, more specialized roles (oversight, governance, prompt engineering, agent architect and agent orchestration) to accommodate the evolving role AI will play within organizations.
More than three out of five respondents (63%) also feel that AI will require substantial upskilling or reskilling within existing development teams.
Other key findings show a growing shift toward AI-driven autonomy. Custom AI agents are becoming central to the shift toward more autonomous, AI-driven operations. Nearly half of software executives (46%) report that their organizations are already integrating agentic AI into applications and workflows, with another 28% of respondents actively piloting such solutions.
Also, customer service use cases top agent development efforts. Almost half of respondents (49%) are planning to adopt AI agents for customer support to autonomously handle inquiries and support tasks, underscoring a drive to improve customer experience and scale support efficiently.
At this time, fewer executives are prioritizing agent-augmented applications in areas like product development (38%), sales and marketing (32%), supply chain management (28%), human resources (24%), or finance and accounting (23%).
Further, investments in AI to achieve critical business outcomes are increasing. Primary drivers for AI adoption—expressed by more than half of respondents— include improving the customer experience (56%), automating routine and repetitive development tasks (55%), expediting software development timelines (54%) and accelerating digital transformation (53%).
In addition, AI-driven automation introduces new governance, security, and scaling challenges. While AI-powered automation unlocks significant potential, its broader adoption has introduced significant governance, security, and compliance risks.
More than three out of five software executives cite these challenges (64%) alongside concerns over the transparency and reliability of AI-generated decisions (64%).
At the same time, the rapid proliferation of AI tools has created new fragmentation and oversight issues, with 44% of software executives identifying increasing technical debt and AI sprawl as critical risks. Addressing these scaling challenges will be essential to realizing AI’s full potential in a responsible way.
