From Discovery to Deployment – Unlocking value through an Agentic AI Strategy

Most organisations are no longer struggling to deploy AI. They are struggling to derive measurable value from it.

Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and its agentic capabilities place organisational transformation as a key strategic consideration for organisations across all sectors. In the first article in the KPMG AI Agentic series, KPMG’s Shane Garahy and Emma Coogan outline how businesses can unlock value through an agentic AI strategy.

KPMG’s Global AI Quarterly Pulse Survey Q2 2026 found that approximately 7 per cent of organisations surveyed are experiencing established Return on Investment, with organisations planning to invest an average of $188 million over the next year on AI investments. Organisations are reimagining the art of what is possible and are facing fears of being left behind or missing out on opportunities to expand revenue streams and enhance efficiencies.

Where to begin and how to align

The biggest challenges facing AI strategy are risk management, quality of organisational data, lack of measurable Return on Investment (“ROI”), employee adoption, and integration with other emerging technologies. This poses the question to all organisations: Where to begin and how to align? KPMG provide a tailored approach to your organisation’s needs on how to structure and approach envisioning a future where agentic AI is embedded across workflows, redefining every layer of your organisation and unlocking new sources of value.

The rapid emergence of agentic AI platforms and marketplaces is making it easier than ever for organisations to adopt AI agents at scale. However, the challenge is no longer access to technology, but making the right strategic choices around governance, integration, security, compliance and operating model design. As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve, organisations that prioritise trust and control alongside innovation will be best placed to unlock value, while those that move without a clear framework risk creating complexity, increasing compliance exposure and limiting return on investment.

Creating a frictionless agentic AI journey

There is an expanding gap between deployment and scaling of AI and creating tangible organisational value. Organisations successfully scaling AI now will be dependent on the effectiveness of aligning agentic AI strategies, governance embedded across operations and their effective ability to evaluate for trust and performance.

Designing such an agentic AI strategy requires meticulous alignment of strategic ambition, operating model design, technology integration, and regulatory readiness.

The ultimate goal is to create a frictionless agentic AI journey from discovery to deployment, embedding trust, governance and scalability at every juncture. Organisations that act now will shape the standards and value flows of this evolving ecosystem, while slower movers risk falling behind as the market matures.

Translating strategic ambition into a structured, scalable operating model

KPMG supports organisations with AI strategy design, operating model transformation, governance frameworks, regulatory readiness assessments, AI risk management and implementation roadmaps.

The KPMG Framework outlined below can be leveraged to structure your organisation’s thinking and approach throughout the design, development and implementation of your agentic AI strategy, from defining your ambition to shaping business and operating models. This can support your organisations in determining what good looks like and the consequences of getting your agentic AI strategy wrong.

Agentic AI has the capability to amplify success, but the same stands for failure in the event of poor design and/ or implementation of an agentic AI strategy. Getting this wrong can impact every tier of the organisation and can give rise to loss of control, loss of trust, regulatory implications, disruption to business activities, litigation exposure and competitive disadvantage, which can generate a loss on returns, diminish market share and erode organisational credibility.

This outlines the key considerations for successfully unlocking value from an Agentic AI strategy, including the introduction of KPMG’s Target Operating Model (‘TOM’), which defines how an organisation uses its people, processes and technology to deliver its strategy effectively.

KPMG’s Target Operating Model

What have leading organisations done?

• A clearly defined long-term strategic ambition for their agentic AI strategy and an understanding of how that ambition translates into financial objectives.
• A clear view of the total revenue opportunity and the market share required to make the strategy viable.
• Identified what consumers value, how those expectations will evolve, and how agentic AI can be leveraged to support long-term value creation.
• A clearly defined concept of agentic AI to bring their strategic ambition to life. Identified and defined the key drivers and trends shaping adoption, with a clear response strategy.

Agentic AI strategy readiness checklist

How KPMG can help

As organisations accelerate their adoption of agentic AI and explore designing, developing and implementing agentic AI strategy, they face a common set of challenges, from defining strategic ambition to navigating regulatory complexity, designing scalable, measurable operating models, and maintaining global consistency.

KPMG supports leadership teams to translate strategic ambition into practical, scalable operating realities that can support your organisation in envisaging a sustainable, trusted and competitive agentic AI strategy. For more insights, visit kpmg.ie.

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