Agentic AI has quickly shifted from a niche innovation to a central pillar of enterprise transformation. No longer confined to answering queries or automating routine tasks, intelligent agents—or AI that can autonomously execute multistep, high-value operations are now defining what it means to be an adaptive business in 2025.

Kalyan Kumar, Chief Product Officer at HCLSoftware, sees the shift as not technical but strategic. “Traditional automation and early AI delivered operational efficiency, but they lacked the strategic capability to navigate complex, high-stakes decisions,” he says. 

“With AgentAI, we’re moving from smart automation to intelligent autonomy—AI that doesn’t just recommend, but acts, with context and responsibility.”

According to a recent McKinsey report, agentic AI technologies are projected to unlock up to $4.4 trillion in annual productivity value, particularly in sectors that rely on real-time decision-making and cross-functional operations. Organizations, especially in high-growth regions like the Gulf, are adopting intelligent agents not for novelty but necessity, seeking to improve operational resilience, reduce error rates, and achieve measurable outcomes in environments too dynamic for rule-based automation alone.

TURNING LIMITATIONS INTO MOTIVATION

“We’ve identified three bottlenecks in enterprise performance: the rigidity of traditional AI models, the exponential growth of data and complexity, and the inadequacy of task automation for strategic decision-making,” Kumar says. Adding that AgentAI responds to all three by becoming a cognitive partner—adaptive, learning, and capable of acting across fragmented systems.”

Recent deployments are bearing this out. IDC has found that enterprises trialing intelligent agent platforms report productivity improvements of up to 35% in operations and logistics, with one in four organizations planning to scale agent use within the next two years. HCLSoftware’s data indicates that AgentAI has enabled up to 40% faster resolution of supply chain exceptions and a marked reduction in repetitive data-handling tasks across customer service, HR, and compliance workflows.

Still, rapid deployment comes with real risks. Research from Gartner warns that while 15% of day-to-day business decisions may be made by autonomous agents by 2027, as many as a quarter of enterprise security breaches could stem from agent misuse or shadow AI.

“Governance is not a feature—it’s the foundation. AI cannot operate responsibly at scale without embedded security, oversight, and compliance by design,” says Kumar.

To that end, AgentAI is architected for secure, modular deployment. It can be hosted on sovereign infrastructure or hybrid environments, with encryption applied both in transit and at rest. Regulatory alignment—critical in regions like the Middle East—is baked into the system through support for role-based access, audit trails, and consent-based data handling.

According to Kumar, these elements are essential for organizations navigating digital transformation within strict regulatory frameworks, such as those in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Saudi Arabia. But technology alone doesn’t drive adoption. Citing an example of how AgentAI resonates with users because HCLSoftware’s “XDO” framework—Xperience, Data, Operations—prioritizes human-centric design, Kumar explains that it involves personalizing customer and employee interactions, enabling real-time contextual insights, and powering autonomous yet auditable business operations.

“Customer co-creation and developer feedback are not side activities—they are embedded in our process,” Kumar says. This includes insights from SPARC innovation hubs, partnerships with digital transformation programs, and regional pilot projects reflecting cultural and linguistic diversity.

AgentAI benefits customer operations as well. It can autonomously triage support tickets, often resolving first-contact issues at scale without human intervention. In DevOps and cybersecurity, intelligent agents proactively identify and address incidents before they escalate. Even in healthcare—where stakes are high—AgentAI has shown promise. Kumar notes that its application in clinical trial monitoring has led to significant cost reductions and faster decision cycles while maintaining regulatory integrity.

The most compelling impact is strategic. As Kumar puts it, “AgentAI changes AI’s role from a cost center to a competitive differentiator.” Instead of merely supporting processes, agents now participate in them, making decisions, adapting strategies, and scaling expertise across business functions.

Looking ahead, HCLSoftware is aligning its long-term vision with intelligent enterprises’ global ambitions. Through its Service-as-Software model, the company aims to embed agentic capabilities across industries, enabling systems to support and perform work securely, contextually, and autonomously. In the Gulf, this means contributing to sovereign AI development, fostering regional engineering talent, and co-building use cases with local governments and enterprises focused on smart governance, energy efficiency, and seamless citizen experiences.

Overall, AgentAI represents more than just a new product category—it signals where enterprise technology is headed. As organizations recalibrate their resilience, adaptability, and intelligence strategies, agentic systems are not simply riding the wave of innovation but steering it.