A global survey by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) found that 84% of executives identify productivity improvement as the leading benefit of AI investments, while only 10% of enterprises allow AI agents to make decisions across multiple functions without human approval.
The TCS Enterprise AI Study: Intelligence that is Real surveyed executives across 25 countries and found that just 9% reported AI agents capable of securely coordinating workflows across enterprise applications.
Security, risk and governance ranked as the leading considerations shaping AI development and deployment, ahead of cost, speed and ease of implementation. The findings point to a gap between the productivity gains organisations report and their readiness to grant AI systems greater autonomy.
The study also found that 90% of respondents consider model independence important to AI investment decisions. However, only 7% reported having organisation-wide plans to maintain continuity when switching AI providers. Meanwhile, 34% identified AI sovereignty requirements—including control over data location, model choice and compliance—as a high or very high organisational risk.
Other findings highlight persistent challenges in enterprise AI adoption. Thirty-nine per cent of organisations are still assessing whether AI initiatives justify token and computing costs, while 44% said important business knowledge remains embedded in employees or fragmented documentation. Targeted use of open-source AI was reported by 46% of respondents.
The study also found growing uncertainty about AI’s effect on employment: the share of leaders saying it was too early to determine the impact rose from 4% in 2024 to 19% in 2026.
The findings suggest that while productivity remains the clearest reported benefit of enterprise AI, security, governance, cost and operational resilience continue to shape how far organisations are prepared to deploy autonomous systems.