Our view
Most agentic AI projects fail for a plain reason. Nobody agreed what success looks like, and nobody put limits around the AI. The technology is rarely the problem.
The pain
- You pay for a pilot and cannot say what it earned.
- The AI does things that nobody checked.
- The "agent" you were sold is a chatbot with a new name.
What the evidence says
Gartner predicts that more than 40% of agentic AI projects will be scrapped by the end of 2027. It gives three reasons: rising costs, unclear business value and weak risk controls. Gartner analyst Anushree Verma says most agentic AI projects today are early stage experiments or proofs of concept. Gartner also warns about "agent washing", where vendors rename chatbots and assistants as agents. It estimates that only about 130 of the thousands of agentic AI vendors are real. Read the report coverage in SD Times.
How we approach it
We follow three rules.
- We agree the measure first, then price it. The price can be a fixed project, a monthly subscription, or a mix with a share of verified results.
- Four controls sit outside the AI. A person approves anything that spends money or reaches a customer. Every action is recorded. Each agent sees only the data its job needs. There are limits on cost and retries.
- We label every example as Live, Demo, Built or Mockup, so you know what is real.
What to do next
Before you sign anything, ask three questions. How will we measure this? Who approves what it does? What can it see? If a vendor cannot answer each in one sentence, wait.
