Workers Embrace Agentic AI Despite Concerns About Trust and Reliability, Says Research

Pegasystems Inc., The Enterprise Transformation Company, announced its new research exploring workers’ feelings toward agentic AI. While a majority of workers (57%) are inclined to use AI agents at work, the survey still finds significant concerns about reliability and quality persist. This highlights a dichotomy between the acceptance and distrust of agentic AI, which may be hindering wider adoption in the workplace. As more organizations adopt agentic AI to improve operations and productivity, research indicates employees are embracing this new technology – 58% of workers surveyed are already using AI agents today. These early adopters are realizing useful benefits: 41% highlighted automation of tedious tasks as the primary benefit, followed by reduced time spent searching for job-related information (36%), and quick meeting summarization (34%). HR Tech Insights: Hackett Finds Rapid Advancement in AI and Automation Transforms Talent Acquisition Technology Despite this, workers have reservations that prevent them from fully trusting agentic AI. When asked about the barriers to using AI agents, 33% are worried about the quality of work produced by AI, 32% point to a lack of human intuition and emotional intelligence, and 30% don’t trust the accuracy of AI-generated responses. Other key findings include:

• Emotional intelligence, quality, and trust remain key concerns: When asked to rate agentic AI concerns, the top ones were clear: 47% believe AI lacks human intuition and emotional intelligence, 40% are uncomfortable submitting AI-generated work, and 34% worry that AI-produced work isn't as good as their own, tied with concerns over accuracy and reliability.

• A positive outlook for agentic AI: Despite current limitations and concerns, 46% still believe AI will positively impact their jobs over the next five years, with only 13% anticipating negative effects. The remaining respondents were neutral toward or unsure about AI's impact.

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• Clear paths to improvement: Workers identified enhanced accuracy and reliability (42%) as the top priority for improvement for agentic AI tools, followed by better training on how to use these tools (39%) and increased transparency in AI decision-making processes (33%). These insights provide a clear roadmap for technology providers and organizations implementing AI solutions.

Ultimately, the survey revealed that most workers are open to using agentic AI and believe in the potential for it to improve their work experiences. However, as organizations incorporate more agentic AI into their daily workflows, organizations will need to put in work to achieve mass adoption. AI agents work best when they are orchestrated – designing, automating, and optimizing workflows and customer journeys alongside humans to achieve maximum results. With this holistic approach to agentic AI, combined with education opportunities and better transparency on how AI makes decisions, employees will be keener to adopt the technology to achieve maximum productivity and results.