There is a reluctance among business leaders to adopt AI agents according to attendees at The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Network Summit in Menlo Park on Tuesday.

61% of attendees said they had experimented with AI agents but only 21% said they are using them at all and the reason for that is the tools’ lack of reliability.

That chimes in with the finding by Gartner, that 85%  of all AI models/projects fail because of poor data quality.

Many executives at the WSJ conference pointed to AI’s  frequent “hallucinations” or errors.

 

Other factors making executives reluctant to adopt AI agents are the cybersecurity and data privacy risks: 29% of attendees cited data privacy as a primary concern, alongside fears of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Additionally attendees cited a lack of clear RoI. Three-quarters of executives felt AI delivers minimal value for its cost.

Finally executives pointed to the operational risks in deploying immature technologies, emphasising the need for better safety measures and operational mitigations.