Agentic AI trends in retail, manufacturing, and finance

According to a new survey by OutSystems and KPMG, the journey to agentic AI adoption is far from uniform across industries. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the earliest adopters skew toward organizations in IT hardware, software, and consulting services, with financial services, manufacturing, and retail the runners-up. However, adoption and development strategies differ significantly among all sectors, as do the key challenges hindering further growth.

Agentic AI trend #1: Retail leads the charge in agentic AI integration

In the retail and wholesale sectors, half of the respondents claimed they were actively integrating agentic AI into their software development, with customer service and IT operations the most popular areas for adoption. Sixty-two percent were implementing or planned to implement agentic AI for automating internal business processes and for code generation and completion. Sixty percent planned to increase their investment in agentic systems by 11% or more over the next 12 months.

Furthermore, 86% of software executives in the retail sector claimed that their ability to govern and monitor the use of AI tools was either good or excellent, suggesting a high degree of confidence in the technology.

Agentic AI trend #2: Manufacturing balances adoption with legacy challenges

The manufacturing sector is also a leading adopter of agentic AI, with 40% of organizations surveyed actively integrating these technologies and a further 34% running pilot projects. The most popular use cases were automating internal business processes, followed by using AI agents to improve and personalize customer experiences.

The investment outlook for agentic systems was similar to that of the retail sector, with 59% of manufacturing companies surveyed planning to increase their investment by 11% or more over the next 12 months. Manufacturers were also broadly confident in their abilities to govern and monitor the use of AI, with 83% of respondents rating their abilities as either good or excellent.

However, manufacturing companies uniquely struggled with integrating multiple agentic AI tools with legacy systems, with 35% reporting difficulties integrating the technology with existing workflows and older infrastructure. For manufacturers facing this challenge, a robust platform is precisely what’s needed to seamlessly embed AI technologies without disrupting existing workflows.

Agentic AI trend #3: Financial services take a cautious approach

The banking and financial services sector paints a very different picture, with respondents navigating agentic automation with significantly greater caution. Just 19% of companies were integrating agentic AI solutions, compared with 50% in the retail sector and the 47% average across all industries. However, given the highly regulated nature of financial services and the significantly lower appetite for risk, this should come as no surprise.

Indeed, 60% of respondents feared that the increased use of automation through agentic AI solutions would lead to new security and compliance concerns. The sector also appeared slightly less confident in their abilities to govern and monitor the use of AI tools, with only 23% rating their abilities as excellent.

Learn more about AI security.

The path to agentic AI is possible for all sectors

Evidently, the path to agentic AI adoption is far from uniform, with each sector facing its own distinct set of opportunities, hurdles, and strategic priorities as it navigates the disruptive force that is agentic AI. However, even for the more cautious industries, it’s possible to take advantage of agentic AI without sacrificing security and compliance.

A single platform with a unified environment empowers teams to build applications and AI agents faster while maintaining quality, governance, and control. And you can get started by using your own systems and data, as described by Gonçalo Borrega, OutSystems VP of Product, AI and App Dev.

To learn more about the survey and its results, read Navigating Agentic and Generative AI in Software Development: Human-Agent Collaboration is Here.