Agentic AI is poised to deliver up to US$450 billion in economic value by 2028 yet, despite strong momentum, only 2% of organizations have fully scaled deployment and trust in AI agents is declining.
Organizations are discovering that AI agents deliver the greatest impact when humans remain actively involved. Nearly three-quarters of executives say the benefits of human oversight outweigh the costs, and 90% view human involvement in AI-driven workflows as either positive or cost-neutral.
This is according to the latest report from Capgemini Research Institute. It conducted in April 2025 a global survey of 1,500 executives at organizations each with more than $1 billion in annual revenue across 14 countries, including Singapore.
The report found that trust and human oversight are critical factors in realizing the potential of agentic AI, and the gap between intent and readiness is now one of the biggest barriers to realizing the $450 billion opportunity.
Agentic AI is one of the fastest-emerging technological trends, but organizations are still in the early stages of application. While nearly a quarter have already launched pilots and a small number have begun implementation (14%), the majority remain in planning mode.
This steady progress stands in contrast to executive ambition – nearly all (93%) business leaders believe that scaling AI agents over the next 12 months will provide a competitive edge, yet nearly half of organizations still lack a strategy for implementing them.
The study found that in Singapore, the proportion of organizations that maintain a stance of no AI agent involvement is projected to decline by 14%. In contrast, all other levels of AI autonomy are expected to see a moderate increase of approximately 3–4%.
Also, 15% of organizations in Singapore are already piloting initial use cases of AI agents, with 11% having implemented it partially or at-scale.
In addition, 51% of organizations in Singapore still do not have a strategy for implementing AI agents (versus the global average of 46%).
Operations (62%) and Customer Services and Support (56%) emerged as the top business functions in which organizations expect AI agents to manage at least one process or sub-process daily.
However, only 7% of organizations in Singapore fully trust AI agents, with trust in AI agents decreasing since 2024 from an average of 56% to 45%.
In Singapore, safety (64%) and lack of transparency (62%) are the top two risks organizations are concerned about.
In one to three years, 31% of organizations in Singapore believe AI agents will augment human team members, while 33% believe AI agents can act as autonomous members within human-supervised teams.
The top hard skill required to build, manage, and harness the potential of AI agents is data management (69%), and the top soft skill is collaboration/teamwork (69%).
Only 7% of organizations in Singapore have fully integrated ethical AI principles, against the global average of 14%.
“The economic potential of AI agents is significant but realizing this value depends on more than just the technology, it requires a comprehensive and strategic transformation across people, processes and systems,” said Franck Greverie, chief portfolio and technology officer at Capgemini.
“To succeed, organizations must remain focused on outcomes, reimagining their processes with an AI-first mindset. Central to this transformation is the need to build trust in AI by ensuring it is developed responsibly, with ethics and safety baked in from the outset,” said Greverie. “It also means reshaping organizations to support effective human-AI chemistry, creating the right conditions for these systems to enhance human judgment and help deliver superior business outcomes.”
