Businesses Are Deploying AI Agents Faster Than They Can Control Them, SAP Study Finds

Most organizations are racing to deploy autonomous AI agents without the governance frameworks needed to manage them safely, according to new research from SAP and Oxford Economics.

Two-thirds (66%) of Canadian organizations are already piloting agentic AI — software that executes complex business tasks without constant human direction — yet 97% of the 200 Canadian leaders surveyed admit they are not fully prepared to deploy and govern it. The average Canadian organization plans to spend $39.4 million on AI this year, projecting a 20% return on investment that nearly doubles to 38% within two years.

The gaps are significant. Nearly two in three Canadian firms using agentic AI (64%) cited higher-than-expected integration effort, and 46% have no human-in-the-loop review process in place at all. More than half (56%) of Canadian organizations say staff use unapproved AI tools at least occasionally, creating exposure to data leakage and IP risk.

Key Takeaways

• Only 3% of organizations globally call themselves fully prepared to deploy and scale AI agents, according to the SAP and Oxford Economics report, which surveyed 2,600 leaders across 13 countries.
• Workforce readiness lags: 78% of businesses globally are unconvinced that company-driven upskilling is keeping pace with AI's evolution, and 78% are equally unconvinced that existing roles are changing fast enough to take advantage of AI-enabled workflows.
• Governance must be built in, not bolted on: SAP's Chief AI Strategy Officer warns that organizations face two challenges at once: risk that moves faster than most governance frameworks can keep up with, and value that is harder to measure than expected. The firm recommends embedding human review at key decision points, with AI handling orchestration and execution inside an audited environment.
• U.S. firms lead on AI ROI: American employers project $9.9 million in AI returns this year, rising to $26.5 million in two years — above the 13-country average. Canada sits closer to the global mean at $5.8 million now, climbing to $15.5 million.

With 78% of organizations expecting to deploy at least one AI agent by the end of 2026, the pressure to close the governance gap is accelerating alongside adoption.

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