Enterprise agent pilots are dying before production, and the models aren't the problem. deloitte…
enterprise agent pilots are dying before production, and the models aren't the problem. deloitte puts the pilot-to-production failure rate at 89%, and the gartner funnel says only 34 of 1,000 budgeted projects ever reach roi.
the gap is data access, evaluation, and ops staffing, not capability.
Context
A Data Today page of 14 September 2026, updated 1 October, attributes an 89 percent figure to Deloitte's 2026 technology trends research as reported by AI News, and a funnel of about 120 of 1,000 budgeted projects reaching production and about 34 reaching ROI to a Gartner April 2026 survey of 782 infrastructure and operations leaders. Deloitte's own page shows a 2025 study with 30 percent exploring, 38 percent piloting, 14 percent with solutions ready to deploy and 11 percent in production, and the 89 percent was not found on it.
Both figures are secondary: the original Deloitte item with the 89 percent, its sample and its definition were not located, and no Gartner publication was read. The two have different bases, 120 of 1,000 reaching production implies 88 percent not, and 34 of 1,000 is 3.4 percent reaching ROI, so they are not merged. The Deloitte page read gives a different measure from a different year. Definitions of pilot and production vary across surveys, as the aggregator says. That the gap is data access, evaluation and ops staffing and not capability is the author's reading.
Related work
- Earlier note with the same figures ↗Same source and figures.
Watch next
- The original Deloitte 89 percent source and Gartner's April 2026 release.
Sources
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 20 September 2026 at 04:46 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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