Agentic AI Gap Persists Between Executives, Workers
CIO Dive, Friday, October 16th, 2026
Executives use AI agents far more than employees, who report tool overload, duplicated work and trust concerns.
Leaders reported using nearly twice as many agents per week as workers, and the gap threatens efforts to scale AI.
Nearly half of workers using agents said about 10% of their time goes to switching tools, picking agents and managing outputs, and 38% said more than a quarter of agent work is duplicated.
Separately, about one in four agents run unmonitored, and a Workato report found nearly two-thirds of executives expect an agent to cause a public security or compliance incident within 18 months.
CIOs are urged to measure whether work gets finished rather than agent activity.