Organisations are preparing to put AI in charge of other AI systems over the next 12 months, according to a new Capgemini report. Some firms are even exploring AI as a supervisor for humans. But fewer than one in three plan to use AI agents as full employees in the coming years. For most workers, AI will take over tasks, not entire jobs.
New era of Human-AI collaboration
The report, based on a survey of over 1,000 executives across 15 countries, underlines the scale of investment. Nearly 9 in 10 organisations have increased spending on generative AI in the past year, raising it by an average of 9%. The technology now makes up about 12% of IT budgets. Still, two-thirds of companies admit they are not ready, pointing to the need for new structures to enable human-AI collaboration.
Tackling costs and orchestrating AI systems
Rising costs are a growing concern. Over half of organisations reported “bill shocks” from cloud usage as pilots expanded faster than expected. To cut expenses, many are opting for smaller language models. Proprietary systems remain a preference, but open-source AI is widely used for its cost-effectiveness.
The focus is shifting from pilots to orchestration. Around half of enterprises scaling AI agents are also trying multi-agent systems to manage connected tasks.
