Businesses in Ireland are moving from experimentation to action with Artificial Intelligence, with increasing evidence that AI agents are boosting productivity.
Recent surveys by professional services firm PwC suggest that AI success in 2026 will hinge on strategy, benchmarks, workforce reimagination and responsible AI.
PwC’s Irish-based research shows that productivity gains are clear, yet cost savings, improved profitability, trust and governance remain challenging. Real results require wholesale transformation and execution with discipline.
“We can see what it looks like to use AI to build leading-edge operating models. Examples of impact are multiplying across many areas of business,” said Robert Byrne, technology, data and AI partner with PwC Ireland.
“Only a few companies are realising extraordinary value from AI, such as surging growth and valuation premiums. Many others see return on investment, but results are modest: efficiency gains, capacity growth and general productivity boosts. These pay for themselves but don’t add up to transformation or significant bottom-line dividends.”
In this Q&A interview with Robert Byrne, he outlines why PwC believes that AI success will come from businesses taking “focused bets” in their approach to AI adoption.
In 2026, we expect agentic AI to play an increasingly important role in business, taking autonomous decisions, following focused investments.
PwC’s AI Agent Survey revealed that 53% of Irish participants see clear productivity boosts from AI agents, but only 38% experience real cost reductions—lagging behind their US counterparts. The challenges are significant: 40% point to data issues as the main hurdle and 36% find it tough to connect AI agents with existing systems. These obstacles highlight why scattered efforts seldom lead to transformation. Senior leadership must pick the spots for focused AI investments where pay-offs can be big. Linking business goals to AI capabilities can achieve high return on investment opportunities.
AI agents can go beyond analysis to automate parts of complex, high-value workflows, taking autonomous decisions. Especially ripe areas for agents include demand sensing and forecasting, hyper-personalisation, product design and functions like finance, HR, IT, tax and internal audit. These are the focused big bets where real value can be achieved.
We expect 2026 to be the year when AI agents will shine guided by real-world benchmarks. Irish companies are keen to expand agentic AI, with 70% planning to boost AI budgets by end of 2026 according to PwC’s AI Agent Survey. But current AI adoption is slow — only 9% report widespread AI agent use, compared to 52% in the US, while 83% in Ireland remain in the exploration phase. This gap underscores the need for clear evidence and benchmarks to support investment.
We expect the gap between early adoption and proven results to change in 2026. We now know what good agentic AI looks like. It has proof points like benchmarks that track value that matters to the business. We expect AI agents to be rolled out as part of all new workflows, and with people who have the training and incentives to work with AI agents and provide oversight.
Demand is set to grow for AI generalists who understand a wide range of tasks well enough to oversee AI agents. Irish workplaces are already experiencing a shift towards AI-driven roles.
PwC’s recent Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey shows that, over the past year, 43% of Irish workers have engaged with AI, with 67% reporting increased productivity. Encouragingly, 55% felt they will maintain control over how technology influences their work—an important foundation for building trust and adoption as roles evolve.
AI agents can increasingly do the specialised tasks of experienced employees. In IT, for example, coders in specific languages may no longer be needed. Instead, engineers who understand both tech architecture and how to manage the AI agents that know these languages will be needed.
In finance functions, as AI agents do tasks like invoice processing, purchase order matching, reconciliations etc, while people with general finance skills can focus on strategy, growing revenue and expanding margins.
We expect 2026 to be the year when companies overcome the responsible AI challenges and roll out rigorous and responsible AI practices.
Irish organisations see the need for responsible AI, but grapple with governance and trust hurdles.
In many cases, AI agents can do roughly half of the tasks that people now do — but that requires a new kind of governance, both to manage risks and improve outputs. The good news: responsible AI can then deliver the value needed: performance, innovation and a reduction in costs and delays.
In 2026, we also expect AI pilots to ‘industrialise’ innovation and scale-up businesses, but investors expect greater transparency on AI strategies and policies.
The very low adoption of AI agents in Ireland underscores the importance of orchestration (i.e. careful co-ordination of the various elements of a project) to accelerate impact and move beyond pilots. Businesses need tech expertise to “industrialise” this innovation, putting ideas into production with continuous monitoring, catching mistakes and fine-tuning performance. All of this takes investment.
According to PwC’s recent global investor survey, investors are beginning to see tangible evidence of operational and financial gains from AI. Some 78% of global investors say they would at least moderately increase their investment in companies pursuing enterprise-wide AI transformation. However, investors are looking for more transparency to inform their decision-making — 37% say companies disclose enough about AI strategies and policies.
