Cloudera Survey Highlights Growing Enterprise Adoption of AI Agents

Cloudera has released findings from its latest global survey report titled “The Future of Enterprise AI Agents.” The survey, which engaged nearly 1,500 IT leaders across 14 countries, explores trends in the adoption, application, and perception of AI agents in enterprise environments. Results indicate that 96% of respondents plan to expand their use of AI agents in the next 12 months, with 50% targeting organisation-wide deployment.

Surveyed enterprises are implementing AI agents for various operational functions. Primary use cases include performance optimisation bots (66%), security monitoring agents (63%), and development assistants (62%). These AI systems represent a shift from traditional automation to agentic AI—solutions capable of reasoning, adapting, and responding in real time.

According to the survey, 83% of organisations view AI agents as critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Respondents cited benefits such as operational agility, cost efficiency, and improved customer engagement as key outcomes of AI agent deployment.

India-Specific Insights and Deployment Trends

In India, adoption trends closely mirror global patterns, with increasing momentum. Cloudera's findings show that 84% of Indian enterprises have implemented AI agents in the past two years—36% of them within the last 12 months. Going forward, 98% plan to expand their deployments, and 78% aim to scale implementations across the organisation.

Indian respondents also highlighted the strategic importance of agentic AI, with 94% stating that investment in these technologies is vital for competitiveness. Current deployments are concentrated in IT, customer support, and marketing functions. Future growth is expected to be driven by enhanced customisation, interoperability, and focus on data privacy.

The report outlines widespread adoption of AI agents, with 57% of global enterprise IT leaders reporting implementation over the past two years, including 21% within the last year. Deployment strategies include building agents on enterprise AI infrastructure platforms (66%) and integrating agentic capabilities within existing applications (60%). This hybrid model reflects a preference for scalable, secure deployments that operate close to organisational data.

Key Barriers and Recommendations

Organisations identified data privacy (53%), integration with legacy systems (40%), and implementation costs (39%) as the top challenges. These concerns underscore the importance of a unified data governance and management framework.

To begin adopting AI agents, Cloudera recommends starting with a targeted, high-impact project—such as an internal IT support agent. These early use cases can demonstrate return on investment, establish confidence, and create a pathway for broader deployment initiatives.

“AI agents have moved beyond experimentation—they’re now delivering real automation, efficiency, and business results. We’re seeing enterprises run hundreds of models in production, all demanding high-fidelity, well-managed data to drive better outcomes,” said Abhas Ricky, Chief Strategy Officer, Cloudera. “In 2025, agentic AI is taking centre stage, building on the momentum of generative AI but with even greater operational impact. Cloudera is enabling this transformation through a robust Enterprise AI Ecosystem, helping global organisations design secure, scalable, and integrated AI workflows that turn data into action.” 

In India, AI agents are being adopted across sectors to address specific operational challenges. In finance and insurance, 52% of implementations focus on fraud detection. In manufacturing, 64% of use cases are concentrated on defect detection and quality control. The retail and e-commerce sectors prioritise demand forecasting and personalisation, each cited by 72% of respondents. In healthcare, AI agents are equally distributed across diagnostics, scheduling, and records processing, each reported by 50% of respondents. Telecommunications demonstrates the highest deployment rates for security monitoring (92%) and infrastructure maintenance (83%), reflecting the sector's emphasis on reliability and user experience.

Industry-Specific Global Trends in AI Agent Deployment

Cloudera’s survey also outlines how enterprises globally are utilising AI agents, with sector-specific use cases emerging based on operational priorities:

Finance and Insurance:
AI agents are being deployed for fraud detection (56%), risk assessment (44%), and investment advisory (38%). These systems are used to identify irregular transactions, simulate risk scenarios, and support advisory services with tailored investment data.

Manufacturing:
Process automation (49%), supply chain optimisation (48%), and quality control (47%) are key focus areas. AI agents monitor production processes, manage supply chain rerouting, and help detect defects to enhance manufacturing efficiency.

Healthcare:
AI agent deployment in healthcare includes appointment scheduling (51%), diagnostic assistance (50%), and medical records processing (47%). These use cases aim to reduce administrative workloads, retrieve electronic medical records efficiently, and assist clinicians in diagnostic evaluations.

Telecommunications:
The telecom industry is applying AI agents to customer support bots (49%), customer experience monitoring (44%), and security monitoring (49%). These agents assist with issue resolution, identify potential customer churn, and monitor for network threats.

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