75% of Companies Consider AI Essential to Operations

Executive trust in AI agents and reliance on AI across business operations is growing, according to the PagerDuty AI Resilience Survey — 81% of executives trust AI agents to take action on the company's behalf during a crisis, such as a service outage or security event.

AI is moving from experimental to essential. Nearly three-quarters of executives (74%) say their company would struggle to function without it, showing how quickly reliance has grown. Projects that began as pilots and trials are now viewed as mission-critical infrastructure.

Additionally, companies are increasingly using AI in software development, where more than four out of five respondents (84%) report using it to write, review, or suggest code.

Key Findings:

Agentic AI deployment is racing ahead

Three out of four (75%) companies have already deployed more than one AI agent, with a quarter (25%) deploying five or more.

Maturing models drive confidence gains

Executives credit better outputs (49%), more frequent usage with positive results (48%), improved understanding of AI (47%), and stronger oversight measures (45%) as the top reasons for growing confidence.

AI is now seen as mission-critical infrastructure

Nearly three in four executives (74%) view AI as essential to operations, rising to 77% for smaller companies under 10,000 employees. C-suites and owners are especially convinced, with 83% saying their business would struggle without AI compared to 73% of directors and VPs.

Engineers are coding with AI at scale

More than four out of five (84%) companies now use AI to write, review or suggest code. Companies with multiple AI agents are even more likely to rely on AI for coding (91%) compared to those with one agent (68%) or none (44%). While 85% test AI-generated code, only 39% do so consistently through formal processes. The US leads on formal testing (59%) while Japan trails at 19%.

Guardrails lag behind increased adoption

An overwhelming 85% of executives say their organizations need better procedures to detect errors or failures in AI tools, with sentiment being highest in France (90%).

Companies are bracing for AI outages

84% of companies report experiencing at least one AI-related outage. More than half (57%) of those that haven't yet had an outage already have protocols in place for handling one, showing that resilience planning is becoming part of AI strategy.

Experience reveals the hidden complexity of AI

Among respondents whose companies have deployed one AI agent, 76% believe AI-driven complexity will outpace the number of people their company has to manage it. This concern is even higher among those with multiple AI agents at 79%.

In contrast, only 57% of respondents from companies without AI agents anticipate this challenge, suggesting that hands-on experience with AI deployment reveals the true scope of management complexity involved.

Methodology: The report is based on responses from 1,500 IT and business executives across Australia, France, Germany, Japan, UK and US regions.

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75% of Companies Consider AI Essential to Operations

Executive trust in AI agents and reliance on AI across business operations is growing, according to the PagerDuty AI Resilience Survey — 81% of executives trust AI agents to take action on the company's behalf during a crisis, such as a service outage or security event.

AI is moving from experimental to essential. Nearly three-quarters of executives (74%) say their company would struggle to function without it, showing how quickly reliance has grown. Projects that began as pilots and trials are now viewed as mission-critical infrastructure.

Additionally, companies are increasingly using AI in software development, where more than four out of five respondents (84%) report using it to write, review, or suggest code.

Key Findings:

Agentic AI deployment is racing ahead

Three out of four (75%) companies have already deployed more than one AI agent, with a quarter (25%) deploying five or more.

Maturing models drive confidence gains

Executives credit better outputs (49%), more frequent usage with positive results (48%), improved understanding of AI (47%), and stronger oversight measures (45%) as the top reasons for growing confidence.

AI is now seen as mission-critical infrastructure

Nearly three in four executives (74%) view AI as essential to operations, rising to 77% for smaller companies under 10,000 employees. C-suites and owners are especially convinced, with 83% saying their business would struggle without AI compared to 73% of directors and VPs.

Engineers are coding with AI at scale

More than four out of five (84%) companies now use AI to write, review or suggest code. Companies with multiple AI agents are even more likely to rely on AI for coding (91%) compared to those with one agent (68%) or none (44%). While 85% test AI-generated code, only 39% do so consistently through formal processes. The US leads on formal testing (59%) while Japan trails at 19%.

Guardrails lag behind increased adoption

An overwhelming 85% of executives say their organizations need better procedures to detect errors or failures in AI tools, with sentiment being highest in France (90%).

Companies are bracing for AI outages

84% of companies report experiencing at least one AI-related outage. More than half (57%) of those that haven't yet had an outage already have protocols in place for handling one, showing that resilience planning is becoming part of AI strategy.

Experience reveals the hidden complexity of AI

Among respondents whose companies have deployed one AI agent, 76% believe AI-driven complexity will outpace the number of people their company has to manage it. This concern is even higher among those with multiple AI agents at 79%.

In contrast, only 57% of respondents from companies without AI agents anticipate this challenge, suggesting that hands-on experience with AI deployment reveals the true scope of management complexity involved.

Methodology: The report is based on responses from 1,500 IT and business executives across Australia, France, Germany, Japan, UK and US regions.

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