{"id":16684,"date":"2026-10-13T13:52:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T17:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/?p=16684"},"modified":"2026-10-13T13:52:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T17:52:35","slug":"ai-challenges-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/ai-challenges-report\/","title":{"rendered":"From Fear of Falling Behind to Fear of Losing Control: What 1,001 IT Leaders Say About AI Agents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We surveyed 1,001 US IT decision-makers at the VP level and above. Of those, 74% said IT leadership would be held accountable if an AI agent caused such harm. Yet, more than three in five said most of the AI agents in use at their organization weren\u2019t formally approved by IT.<br><br>That\u2019s the issue at the center of our new report, \u201cAI Challenges Threatening IT Leader Success.\u201d Last year, IT leaders were afraid of falling behind on AI; now their fear is that adoption is outpacing governance, and IT owns the risk of AI agents it often didn\u2019t approve and can\u2019t fully observe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Adoption is moving faster than governance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ninety-two percent of IT leaders expect their organization to adopt digital coworkers in the next 18 months. Meanwhile, 64% expect unapproved AI agent activity to increase over the next 12 months.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Leaders expect something to go wrong<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sixty-two percent said they\u2019d bet an AI agent will cause a public security or compliance incident at their organization within the next 18 months.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The career stakes are high. Nearly one in four said they\u2019d expect to resign or be removed after a major incident. More than a third said they\u2019ve often lost sleep over AI agent activity in the past 90 days.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">This isn\u2019t an anti-AI story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">IT leaders understand the importance of AI, with 95% saying that, with the right governance and controls in place, digital coworkers could deliver significant productivity gains for their organization. Our research shows that leaders want the visibility, auditability, and accountability to run AI agents with confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">See the full findings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This post covers a fraction of the data. <a href=\"http:\/\/workato.com\/full-reports\/ai-challenges-threatening-it-leader-success\"><strong>Download the full report: AI Challenges Threatening IT Leader Success.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We surveyed 1,001 US IT decision-makers at the VP level and above. Of those, 74% said IT leadership would be held accountable if an AI agent caused such harm. Yet, more than three in five said most of the AI agents in use at their organization weren\u2019t formally approved by IT. That\u2019s the issue at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":16685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai-governance-security","category-thought-leadership"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>AI Agent Governance: What 1,001 IT Leaders Say<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nearly three in four IT leaders say they\u2019d be held accountable when AI agents cause harm. Yet 62% say most agents weren\u2019t approved by IT. Get the full report.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/ai-challenges-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AI Agent Governance: What 1,001 IT Leaders Say\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nearly three in four IT leaders say they\u2019d be held accountable when AI agents cause harm. Yet 62% say most agents weren\u2019t approved by IT. Get the full report.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/ai-challenges-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Workato\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-10-13T17:52:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-13T17:52:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/ai_challenges_threatening_it_leader_succes_blog_header_image.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"446\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dana Hall\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dana Hall\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/ai-challenges-report\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/ai-challenges-report\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Brad Griffith\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.workato.com\\\/the-connector\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/48d4fbdd705873544c1bf42aecf288d5\"},\"headline\":\"From Fear of Falling Behind to Fear of Losing Control: What 1,001 IT Leaders Say About AI Agents\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-10-13T17:52:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-10-13T17:52:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/ai-challenges-report\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":302,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/ai-challenges-report\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/10\\\/ai_challenges_threatening_it_leader_succes_blog_header_image.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"AI Governance &amp; Security\",\"Thought Leadership\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/ai-challenges-report\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/ai-challenges-report\\\/\",\"name\":\"AI Agent Governance: What 1,001 IT Leaders Say\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.workato.com\\\/the-connector\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/ai-challenges-report\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/ai-challenges-report\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/10\\\/ai_challenges_threatening_it_leader_succes_blog_header_image.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-10-13T17:52:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-10-13T17:52:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.workato.com\\\/the-connector\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/48d4fbdd705873544c1bf42aecf288d5\"},\"description\":\"Nearly three in four IT leaders say they\u2019d be held accountable when AI agents cause harm. 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