77% of Companies Now Run Agentic AI in Production. Forrester Says Most Have Stopped Asking Who It's For.

Forrester VP Srividya Sridharan opens with a number that ends the adoption debate outright: 77% of AI decision-makers now report using agentic AI in production. Her argument is that a harder problem has replaced it — proving AI investment delivers business value, not just technical capability. Her critique of where companies spend their attention is specific: organizations have become preoccupied with model performance, deployment mechanics, and tooling choices, while losing sight of the customer needs the technology is supposed to serve. She names four traits shared by the highest-performing AI adopters — customer focus rooted in outcomes rather than internal convenience, a CEO-driven vision tied to strategic goals rather than isolated pilots, investment in AI-ready data and technology foundations, and deliberate development of AI-specific talent. Two named case studies anchor the piece: DBS Bank, using AI to deliver personalized financial recommendations, and Kraft Heinz, applying generative AI to customer experience while working to preserve brand trust. Her closing line is the actual thesis: “The companies that win with AI won’t necessarily be the ones deploying the most AI. They’ll be the ones that never lose sight of who the journey is for.”

A separate Forrester index published the same week gives a picture of what losing that focus looks like, even though its subject isn’t AI specifically: the 2026 US Federal Government Customer Experience Index fell 2.5 points, from 61.9 to 59.4 — the first statistically significant year-over-year decline Forrester has recorded since it began measuring federal CX in 2016, with seven agencies posting significant drops and none improving. The National Park Service led for a tenth consecutive year at 74.0, while USAJOBS.gov (48.9) and HealthCare.gov (48.4) sat at the bottom of a 25.6-point spread. Forrester’s own read is that quality of information and speed of problem resolution drive the score — exactly the customer-outcome measures Sridharan says AI adopters lose track of when they optimize for deployment instead.

For B2B sellers pitching AI investment internally, the pairing is the pitch: 77% adoption is table stakes now. The differentiator is whether anyone can point to a customer-outcome number that moved, the way DBS and Kraft Heinz can and the federal government currently cannot.