As organizations advance deeper into the age of agentic AI, productivity gains are no longer enough. The next era of enterprise value will be defined by innovation, the ability to reimagine business models, uncover new revenue streams, and achieve outcomes once out of reach.
IDC’s FutureScape 2026 research signals this shift. After years of experimentation, AI has become a structural force of transformation. IDC believes that the enterprises that lead in the coming decade will use agentic AI to go beyond automation and embrace it for invention.
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The new forces shaping enterprise growth
The landscape for 2026 and beyond is being redefined by several powerful currents. Trusted, high-quality data has become the foundation of every scalable AI initiative. Without it, decision-making falters and innovation is constrained. At the same time, organizations face mounting pressure to modernize legacy systems that hold back agility and increase costs.
Workforce transformation is just as important. AI is now woven into daily work, demanding role redesign, new skills development, and change management focused on helping people thrive alongside intelligent systems.
Meanwhile, trust, ethics, and transparency have become central to every AI strategy. Regulatory scrutiny is rising, and customers expect greater empathy and accountability from intelligent systems. Security and compliance remain top priorities as digital threats evolve. Together, these factors define how enterprises plan, invest, and compete in the years ahead.
The innovation imperative
While much of the focus on AI use cases to-date has been on cost savings and incremental productivity enhancements, IDC predicts that by 2026, 70% of G2000 CEOs will focus AI ROI on growth, driving C-suites to reinvent business models without expanding headcount
Agentic AI expands human capacity for exploration and experimentation, allowing organizations to model complex scenarios, synthesize data across ecosystems, and identify new opportunities in real time.
IDC predicts that 60% of new economic value generated by digital businesses by 2030 will come from companies investing in and scaling AI capabilities today.
This acceleration signals that innovation, not efficiency, will become the defining competitive advantage.
The new currency of growth
In the agentic era, innovation becomes a measurable advantage. IDC predicts that enterprises using AI-driven development will release products and services up to 400% faster than their peers.
This acceleration reshapes how organizations capture opportunity, from R&D and financial modeling to supply-chain optimization, compressing timelines and amplifying creativity.
Innovation across industries
In manufacturing and operations, agentic systems are transforming how organizations design, produce, and deliver.
By 2028, 40% of global supply-chain organizations will deploy integrated execution platforms that orchestrate humans, robots, and vehicles across multi-node networks, cutting logistics costs by 10%.
Manufacturers are using AI agents to simulate production scenarios, manage sustainability goals, and anticipate disruptions, creating more resilient, adaptive enterprises capable of continuous innovation.
The future of work is evolving in parallel. By 2029, G1000 organizations that measure human–AI collaboration will achieve operating margins up to 15% higher than those focused solely on automation. Leading enterprises will see employees as innovators working with AI, blending curiosity and computational power to accelerate product development, experience design and process reinvention.
Innovation anchored in trust
Trust is becoming an increasingly important element of the AI-fueled business. CEOs consistently point to trust as being critical focus area for business success. As AI systems gain autonomy, governance, transparency, and human oversight become essential to scaling safely. Organizations that embed accountability into design will innovate faster by reducing friction, improving regulatory alignment, and increasing stakeholder confidence. Trust frameworks provide the foundation for responsible experimentation and accelerated adoption.
The human engine behind innovation
Discussions about AI almost always include its impact on the workforce and the future of work. Agentic AI has a real potential to amplify human ingenuity. IDC predicts that by 2026, 40% of all G2000 job roles will involve collaboration with AI agents.
When planned thoughtfully this evolution allows people to focus on creativity, strategy, and problem-solving. Innovation becomes a partnership between human and machine, with humans providing context and imagination and AI agents delivering speed and scale. Together, they form an innovation engine capable of transforming industries and driving sustainable growth.
Designing for enterprise-wide orchestration
The future belongs to organizations that treat agentic AI not as a collection of siloed projects but as the operating logic of the enterprise. After years of experimentation, the focus is shifting to orchestration, where AI agents interact, share data, and make autonomous decisions within trusted governance frameworks.
IDC predicts that by 2027, 40% of organizations will invest in AI-infused data architectures to avoid poor decisions, lost opportunities, and reduced competitiveness in a data-driven economy. When data is clean, connected, and governed, it fuels agility and innovation across every function. Organizations that make this transition toward enterprise-wide orchestration will create an adaptive business model capable of reinvention and growth.
Helping you chart the path to AI-fueled growth
Join IDC’s FutureScape 2026 webinars to explore the next frontier in AI-fueled business strategies. Learn how agentic AI is redefining innovation, the CIO agenda, and the enterprise of the future.
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