Introduction
As businesses evolve, so too does the technology they utilize. Gartner’s recent predictions highlight a significant shift in how enterprises will approach assistive intelligence tools and the management of workflows over the coming years.
Gartner forecasts that by 2028, over half of enterprises will discontinue their payments for assistive intelligence tools like copilots and smart advisors. Instead, they will lean towards platforms that emphasize workflow outcomes.
This shift signifies a broader transition from software aimed at helping humans complete tasks to systems where humans oversee intelligent agents that perform tasks on their behalf. The crucial factor is not the presence of AI, but whether it possesses the delegated authority to initiate actions across enterprise systems while adhering to established policies and identity parameters.
Gartner indicates that this evolution is likely to first impact approval-heavy and time-sensitive workflows, where AI can minimize decision-making delays and allocate more execution authority to policy-dependent agents. Moreover, the execution process is expected to migrate from conventional interfaces to platforms that govern enterprise contexts and allow for safe delegation of work. In this framework, human roles will shift towards overseeing outcomes rather than completing every task themselves.
According to the report, enterprises and software vendors will increasingly confront a pivotal choice: they must either redesign their systems to focus on delegated execution and control mechanisms or risk remaining as interface layers susceptible to being bypassed by agentic systems.
Furthermore, Gartner predicts that by 2030, software vendors that merely layer AI onto existing legacy systems without rethinking their approach for agentic execution may experience margin contractions of up to 80%. The report highlights that enterprise context is emerging as a key control layer for AI operations. Gartner emphasizes that vendors better positioned for success will be those who integrate agent orchestration into their systems of record, provide policy-aware execution APIs, and enforce identity, permissions, and audit controls at the control-plane level.
The report concludes that while established vendors may have inherent advantages, the true measure of their success will depend on their ability to translate control over enterprise context into delegated execution authority.
Conclusion
As the landscape evolves, the call for integrating intelligent systems within enterprises becomes increasingly clear. Businesses must adapt or risk falling behind as the shift towards streamlined, outcome-based workflows takes center stage in the digital transformation journey.
