“Isn’t this stuff just for Silicon Valley?” This is what CIOs often hear from board members and C-suite colleagues when the topic of AI agents arises. The truth is that employees are already using AI tools in their personal tech stacks — with or without IT approval. MIT’s Media Lab estimates that workers from 90% of companies surveyed use personal chatbot accounts like ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) for daily work tasks.
Far from being the stuff of Silicon Valley, agentic AI has seeped into company workflows. The imperative for businesses now is to figure out how to implement and deploy AI agents in secure ways that improve business operations and enable employees.
For CIOs, that starts by debunking four AI myths that are holding businesses back.
Myth 1: Agentic AI Will Replace Workers
To be frank, it will not. A recent McKinsey study found that while every occupation will be affected by AI in some way, only about 5% of occupations could be fully automated, and only about 30% of tasks across 60% of professions could be automated.
Myth 2: AI Agents are Uncontrollable
While it may not always be apparent, AI provides some degree of support for a majority of systems running today, from the use of AIOps to automate IT infrastructure and analyze network traffic for suspicious behavior to the near-ubiquitous adoption of customer service chatbots. Enterprises do not deploy AI agents without guardrails and process monitoring without human-in-the-loop oversight. Moreover, enterprises have already gone through the cash burn with GenAI investments, as shown by the now infamous stat that 95% of organizations get zero return on their GenAI investments. They are not looking to make the same mistake with agentic AI in this next tech cycle.
Myth 3: Agentic AI is too Expensive
There used to be a time when this technology, especially in the quants section, was something you would only see in an episode of Billions, but that is no longer the case. When focusing on purpose-built solutions that deliver outcomes and not just burn through tokens, the ROI is measurable in months, if not years. Now, the bigger risk isn’t overspending; it’s standing still while competitors move forward.
Myth 4: Agentic AI is only for Tech Companies
This myth may be the most dangerous of all. Buying into this myth risks your company missing out on the biggest opportunity for business transformation to date.
For example, when it comes to insurance and reimbursement in healthcare, operators are inundated by pharmacy receipts, many of which are crumpled, handwritten or taped together. I grew up watching my grandfather, a pharmacy owner, consistently speed dial the local doctor’s office to double-check what the papers said. The manual entry process slows down reimbursement and creates a bad customer experience.
When you deploy AI agents that can read, validate and flag anomalies, organizations can cut processing times dramatically. A human is still involved in reviewing exceptions, but the grunt work is fully automated.
Why Does all this Matter?
CIOs feel the pressure to do more with less, build resilience and stay market competitive. The best way to do so involves the use of all the tools available. This includes agentic AI.
While the myths, replacement chaos, costs and exclusivity can make it appear like science fiction, agentic AI is a modern, practical tool. You must deploy it responsibly and with purpose so it can amplify teams and accelerate operations responsibly.
What should today’s leaders do?
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Start small, with repeatable, rule-heavy processes.
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Bake oversight into your design; let agents pause and humans decide.
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Show ROI quickly, then scale using the right technology for the problem.
The only real myth that’s left is believing you can afford to ignore agentic AI. Stop waiting for it to “mature” or you’ll be left behind.
