Research for Microsoft conducted by Goldsmiths, University of London, has reported that the highest performing businesses and most productive public sector organisations have a clear artificial intelligence (AI) strategy and are preparing for agentic AI.
The research, published in Microsoft’s Agents of change report, polled 1,480 UK senior leaders across the public and private sectors, as well as 1,440 UK employees.
According to the report, while the majority of leaders and employees acknowledge the benefits on offer, far fewer believe their organisation is in a position to seize them. The study found that barriers of workforce readiness, strategy and regulatory uncertainty persist.
Secretary of state Peter Kyle said AI agents have a key role to play in helping organisations work smarter rather than faster.
Chris Brauer, director of innovation at Goldsmiths, University of London, said: “Agentic AI has the potential to revolutionise operations, increase resilience and free employees from many routine tasks – if organisations are front footed. There are steps high-, medium- and low-performing organisations in both the public and private sectors can take today.”
The report found that two-thirds (67%) of leaders and nearly half (46%) of employees believe they would be more productive if AI could autonomously handle many of their time-consuming or repetitive tasks.
Microsoft defines agentic AI as an AI system with varying capabilities, including making decisions and taking actions to achieve specific goals with reduced or no direct human intervention.
Microsoft UK CEO Darren Hardman said: “Agentic AI can play a key role in removing digital drudgery, giving workers the opportunity to spend more time on creative and value-adding tasks.”
Almost three-quarters (71%) of the people who took part in the survey say they are looking for ways to create cost reductions through automation. Two-thirds (64%) say they are seeking efficiency and productivity gains through AI-led workflows and processes. The survey also found that many organisations are aiming to strengthen business resilience by using AI to improve fraud detection, forecast risks and enable real-time responses to market changes.
However, the study found that just 46% of leaders say their organisation has a formal AI strategy in place. While this is a notable increase since 2024, when that figure was 29% according to previous Microsoft research, the report said the figure is still not high enough if the UK is to unlock the full potential of agentic AI.
The report concluded that many UK organisations are stuck in neutral gear at the very time they should be accelerating. “As well as limiting the value generated by their AI tools, this threatens their ability to future-proof for new innovations while jeopardising their aspirations for growth and competitive edge, it warned.
To tie in with the study, Microsoft announced AI Accelerator for Sales, which will be available from 1 April. The accelerator programme includes access to AI experts at Microsoft to help customers migrate from legacy customer relationship management (CRM) systems and aid with seller adoption. AI Accelerator for Sales also provides what Microsoft describes as “fine-tuning”, which it said personalises the output of AI agents to meet specific business needs.
