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Dynatrace’s new global report, The Pulse of Agentic AI 2026, reveals enterprises are reaching an inflection point in agentic AI adoption—ramping up investment while scaling cautiously until reliability, governance, and observability prove effective in production environments.
Dynatrace (NYSE: DT), a leader in AI-powered observability, has released The Pulse of Agentic AI 2026, a global survey of 919 senior leaders responsible for agentic AI initiatives. The report highlights that enterprises are not hesitating due to skepticism about AI’s value, but because safely scaling autonomous systems demands proven reliability, governance, resilience, and real-time insight.
Approximately half of projects remain in proof-of-concept or pilot stages, yet momentum is building rapidly—26% of organizations now run 11 or more agentic AI initiatives. As focus shifts from experimentation to scaled production, reliability emerges as the primary gating factor.
The research indicates strong financial commitment, with 74% of respondents expecting budget increases in the coming year and 48% anticipating rises of $2 million or more. This reflects a structural inflection point where observability, trust, and operational maturity determine success in agentic AI deployment.
Agentic AI is most actively deployed in IT operations and DevOps (72%), software engineering (56%), and customer support (51%). Business leaders prioritize real-time insights for decision-making (51%), followed closely by improved system performance/reliability (50%) and internal efficiency/cost reduction (50%). Expected ROI is highest in ITOps and system monitoring (44%), cybersecurity (27%), and data processing/reporting (25%).
Security, privacy, and compliance concerns (52%) and technical challenges in managing and monitoring agents at scale (51%) remain the leading obstacles to full production deployment, followed by skills shortages or training gaps (44%).
Organizations maintain intentional human involvement even as autonomy increases. Most deploy a mix of autonomous and supervised agents (64%), with 69% of agentic decisions still requiring human verification and 87% of organizations actively building or using supervised agents. Expected collaboration models include 50/50 human-AI for IT operations and routine customer support, and 60/40 for broader business applications.
Common validation approaches include data quality checks (50%), human review of outputs (47%), and monitoring for drift or anomalies (41%). Notably, 44% still rely on manual review of inter-agent communication flows, underscoring the need for more automated governance mechanisms.
Observability is emerging as a foundational capability across the agentic AI lifecycle, with highest adoption during implementation (69%) to deliver real-time visibility into agent behavior, system performance, and decision-making. It also supports development (54%) and operationalization (57%).
“Organizations are not slowing adoption because they question the value of AI, but because scaling autonomous systems safely requires confidence that those systems will behave reliably and as intended in real-world conditions,” said Alois Reitbauer, Chief Technology Strategist at Dynatrace. “With most enterprises now spending millions of dollars annually and planning further budget increases, agentic AI is becoming a core part of digital operations. At the same time, the data shows a clear shift underway. While human oversight remains essential today, organizations are increasingly preparing for more autonomous, AI-driven decision-making. The focus is now on building the trust and operational reliability needed to scale agentic AI responsibly.”
“Observability is a vital component of a successful agentic AI strategy,” continued Reitbauer. “The Dynatrace AI Center of Excellence works with many of our largest customers, and as organizations push toward greater autonomy, they need real-time visibility into how AI agents behave, interact, and make decisions. Observability not only helps teams understand performance and outcomes, but it provides the transparency and confidence required to scale agentic AI responsibly and with appropriate oversight.”
About Dynatrace
Dynatrace is advancing observability for today’s digital businesses, helping to transform the complexity of modern digital ecosystems into powerful business assets. By leveraging AI-powered insights, Dynatrace enables organizations to analyze, automate, and innovate faster to drive their business forward.
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