Agentic AI in Ireland: Moving from POC to large‑scale deployment
Irish businesses increasingly see AI agents as a route to higher productivity, smarter operations and competitive advantage.
For many organisations in Ireland, the conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer whether to experiment, but how to turn early pilots into systems that deliver real business value at scale. That shift is bringing agentic AI into sharper focus.
Irish businesses increasingly see AI agents as a route to higher productivity, smarter operations and competitive advantage. According to PwC Ireland’s 2025 AI Agent Survey, 70% of Irish firms plan to increase AI-related budgets because of interest in agentic AI, yet only 9% report broad adoption so far. That gap captures the current Irish market perfectly: strong intent, early experimentation, and a growing need to move from proof of concept to large-scale deployment.
Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can pursue goals with a high degree of autonomy. Rather than simply responding to prompts, they can gather information, reason through options, create plans and take action with limited human intervention. This advanced form of artificial intelligence has the potential to transform various industries by automating complex processes and optimising workflows.
The Irish market is still at an early point in the adoption curve for AI agents. As per PwC Ireland survey, just 9% of organisations report broad adoption, while 67% remain in testing or partial implementation. The pattern indicates a market that is moving with intent, but where scaling still depends on resolving issues such as integration, trust and organisational readiness.
There are also signs of value emerging, even if transformation remains uneven. PwC survey found that 53% of Irish respondents reported measurable productivity gains from AI agents, but only 38% said those gains are translating into tangible cost savings. At the same time, 54% believe AI agents will provide a significant competitive advantage in the year ahead, and 29% think their operating model will materially change within two years because of AI agents.
Another major trend is that adoption is still concentrated in practical, operational use cases. Customer service support is the top area where Irish organisations apply AI agents at 49%, followed by operations and finance and accounting at 38% each. That suggests many businesses are still starting with contained, lower-risk deployments before expanding into more strategic functions.
In banking, agentic AI is moving beyond simple chatbots into more complex financial decision support. As KPMG notes in this report, banks are deploying conversational AI that can combine real-time analytics, behavioural insights and predictive models to help customers make decisions on savings, debt, pensions and investments. In the Irish context, this points to AI agents that can support personalised customer journeys at scale while improving efficiency across banking operations.
There are promising applications within AI in healthcare too. These include triage assistants that analyse symptoms before a clinician is involved, AI scribes that summarise patient histories and reduce documentation time, and digital health coaches that use behavioural nudges to support outcomes and medication adherence. AI agents can also act as operational agents that can adjust staffing or theatre schedules in response to real-time demand forecasts.
In retail operations, agentic AI can make decisions and act across the whole workflow rather than just producing recommendations. As this EY report notes, agentic AI can reorder stock, launch targeted promotions and schedule staff for busy periods without waiting for manual prompts. It also points to real-world-style use cases such as autonomous sourcing, dynamic inventory management and workflow automation that frees retail staff to focus on higher-value work.
Challenges of agentic AI
PwC’s survey shows that trust remains low: only 7% of Irish respondents expressed high trust in AI agents across multiple functions and activities. None of the Irish respondents said they highly trust AI agents to conduct financial transactions, while only 4% trust them to act autonomously in customer interactions.
Data and systems are another barrier. PwC found that data issues are the top obstacle to realising value from AI agents for 40% of Irish respondents, while 36% cited integration with legacy systems. These findings underline the importance of modernising data infrastructure and ensure responsible data practices to unlock the potential of agentic AI.
Cybersecurity also matters. PwC reports that only 29% of Irish respondents are using AI agents for cyber defence, and just 4% say they are improving their ability to detect and prevent cyber threats through AI agents. Alongside this, PwC says robust governance, transparency and oversight will be essential to building trust as organisations scale deployments.
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