For the second year in a row, automation and process optimisation use cases are most common, with 84% of respondents indicating that their organisation employs AI in this manner.
This is according to a report from Okta, which found that Two-thirds of leaders regard AI as key to their business strategy. Broad adoption of AI can be attributed to its long list of applications and use cases.
Commissioned by Okta, AlphaSights recruited 260 executives, both C-suite and vice presidents, to take an online double-blinded survey on their sentiments, concerns, and business priorities regarding AI.
Respondents were recruited from Australia (12%), Canada (12%), France (12%), Germany (12%), India (12%), the Netherlands (12%), the United Kingdom (12%), the United States (12%), and Japan (8%).
AlphaSights fielded the survey in April and May 2025 and recruited the panel. A third-party consultant provided an analysis of the key findings.
The survey revealed quite a bit of year-over-year change. Coding and software development rose from fourth place in 2024 (56%) to second place (74%), on the strength of an 18-percentage-point increase (the largest exhibited).
Content generation and creativity use cases jumped from fifth to third.
Moving in the other direction, predictive analytics and forecasting fell from second to fifth, declining seven percentage points — notably, this is the only use case to experience decreased adoption.
Blowing past even recent projections, a staggering 91% of respondents reported that their organisation is currently using AI agents. Not investigating, not planning, but actually already using.
Focusing on AI agents, specifically, respondents reported a mean of nearly five (4.8) use cases within their respective organizations. Task automation was cited most frequently (81% of respondents), likely a result of its broad appeal and range of applications.
Organisations are also deploying agents in support of specific teams and functions, led by enhancing customer service or support (65%), providing IT support (55%), and coding agents (51%), and accompanied by several more in the long tail. These more targeted use cases indicate that AI agents are proliferating widely within organisations, increasing their impact.
Also, leaders report that AI agents are delivering meaningful benefits. Increased productivity (cited by 84% of respondents) and cost savings (60%) lead the way, but these outcomes represent only the tip of the iceberg.
Nearly half of respondents reported using AI agents to enhance customer experiences and streamline workflows, while over one-third realised gains in decision-making, scalability, and innovation with AI agent adoption.
To fulfill the diverse range of use cases listed previously, AI agents may require access to an organisation’s data, systems, and resources.
However, increased access brings increased risk: Poorly built, deployed, or managed AI agents can present new attack vectors, including prompt injection and account takeovers.
Even absent malicious intent, unexpected behaviours can potentially result in breaches, reputational damage, and non-compliance with regulatory requirements.
Respondents placed data privacy and security risks as first and second as primary concerns, by both severity (ranked as their top concern) and frequency (cited most often).
