Companies are targeting AI and agent projects at specific operations—legacy systems, payroll, HR coaching, real estate and retail—instead of enterprise-wide adoption; 90% of GFT report respondents worry global AI investment may outpace the business value it can deliver.
GFT's survey found 95% of respondents said legacy systems delay their organizations' ability to deploy and scale AI, with 56% calling the delay moderate or major. Also, 84% reported canceling at least one AI pilot or project because of legacy-system limits; 93% believe using AI on those systems would eventually trigger an enterprise-wide security crisis.
An ADP survey of 1,816 payroll stakeholders in 20 countries found 35% said a lack of automation was the leading cause of payroll inaccuracies and 29% said AI was key to transforming payroll; PayrollOrg says 46% of workers are uncomfortable with payroll AI. Ontop's COO said humans must approve money movement. Cloverleaf found only three of 638 pieces of advice from public AI models in boss-complaint scenarios encouraged repairing work relationships. Effie AI's CEO cited a 56% optimization in field-worker time through early planogram adoption at companies including Nestlé. Revyse's AI vendor platform flags missed renewals and expired insurance.
