Why Agentic AI Needs More Than Just a Model
The enterprise conversation around AI is shifting fast. What started with excitement over copilots and natural language prompts is now giving way to a more strategic question: how do we actually make AI useful across the business?
The answer lies in what Gartner and others call Agentic AI. These aren’t just tools that summarize emails or suggest the next best action. Agentic AI is about systems that observe, decide, and take action. They don’t just inform. They get work done.
But for that to happen, something critical needs to be in place.
“AI has to have access to data in order to make decisions, and it has to have the ability to actually take some kind of action,” explains Andrew Humphreys, VP Analyst at Gartner.
“An agent is useless if it can’t have access to data, and it can’t make a decision.”
That quote, which was featured in both a recent CIO.com article and Humphreys’ June 2025 Gartner research, highlights the central reason so many AI projects stall.
It’s not the model. It’s the missing infrastructure.
The Hidden Barrier to Agentic AI
Across industries, enterprises are building AI agents. But most aren’t getting past the prototype phase. The problem? No connective tissue. The systems these agents depend on, apps, workflows, data, governance, are disconnected.
According to Gartner:
- 70% of organizations building multi-LLM applications and AI agents will use integration platforms for orchestration and connectivity by 2028, up from less than 5% today.
- The top 3 blockers for GenAI implementation are security, data availability, and integration, not model performance.
Agentic AI can’t live in a silo. It needs three things:
- Real-time, trusted access to enterprise data
- The ability to execute workflows across systems and people
- Governance, observability, and control from day one
This is orchestration. And without it, even the most promising AI agent is just a demo.
From Questions to Capabilities
When CIOs ask, “How do I make it easier for my AI developers to connect to things and get data?” or “How can I see what agents are actually doing across my architecture?”, they’re pointing to the same foundational need.
You can’t scale Agentic AI without unifying three key layers:
- Connectivity to every app and system
- Process orchestration that lets agents act, escalate, and coordinate
- Governance that ensures security, compliance, and visibility
This is where Workato comes in.
Workato Was Built for Agentic AI
Workato isn’t just another automation platform with AI bolted on. It’s a platform designed from the ground up to power enterprise-wide orchestration. That’s what agents need to function in the real world.
Connect everything, instantly
Workato offers over 10,000 prebuilt connectors and supports any integration pattern: API, events, batch, files, and even unstructured inputs like transcripts or documents. Agents can access the data they need without fragile code or endless customization.
Observe and control every interaction
Governance is not optional when you’re deploying agents across finance, HR, or IT. Workato provides:
- Built-in audit logging
- Role-based access controls
- Key rotation and encryption
- Federated policy management through Automation HQ
From day one, you have full observability into what agents are doing, where, and why.
Orchestrate actions across the business
With Workato’s Agent Studio, you can build agents that do more than just suggest. They act. They call other skills, trigger approvals, escalate when needed, and execute workflows that span multiple apps, data sources, and teams. And with support for modern protocols like MCP and A2A, agents can interact with each other and adapt in real time.
From AI Islands to Enterprise-Ready Agents
Right now, many organizations are testing AI in isolation. A chatbot here. A summarization tool there. But disconnected tools won’t move the needle.
To make AI work across the business, agents need to be part of the core fabric. They need orchestration.
“Integration technologies are essential to the success of AI initiatives,” writes Gartner.
“Integration is what securely connects AI with necessary data sources, ensures data is cleaned and formatted, and implements the management and orchestration of data flow.”
Orchestration Is What Makes Agentic AI Work
Agentic AI isn’t just about what large language models can generate. It’s about what intelligent systems can do – and how reliably, securely, and contextually they can do it across your business.
But that kind of action requires more than a smart model. It requires access to data, integration with systems, orchestration of workflows, and governance every step of the way. As Gartner makes clear, AI initiatives won’t succeed without this foundation.
That’s where Workato comes in.
We combine integration, low-code automation, and enterprise-grade orchestration in a single platform, so your agents can operate with full context and control. Whether you’re enabling developers, scaling AI use cases, or building a more responsive enterprise, we help you move from proof of concept to production.
