Industrial firms adopt agentic AI digital workers to bridge capacity gaps

New research commissioned by IFS and conducted by The Futurum Group indicates that industrial organizations are increasingly adopting agentic, AI-powered digital workers to combat workforce capacity shortages. The study highlights that industrial employees currently spend approximately 41% of their time on repetitive manual tasks, which limits their ability to focus on higher-value activities.

This capacity gap is exacerbated by the retirement of experienced engineers and operators across sectors such as manufacturing, utilities, transportation, and supply chains. Consequently, 77% of surveyed decision-makers reported that they have delayed or abandoned strategic initiatives because their teams lacked the necessary capacity to execute them.

While only 10% of enterprises currently operate in mostly autonomous AI environments, investment is accelerating. The research found that for every organization not planning to invest in digital workers over the next year, two are actively preparing to do so. Despite this, a trust gap remains; only 5.7% of decision-makers trust AI to act fully autonomously, suggesting a continued need for human-in-the-loop models where AI handles high-volume tasks and humans provide judgment.