Industrial workers lose 41% of their time to manual, repetitive tasks, according to research from The Futurum Group, commissioned by IFS. To bridge the gap, organisations are sharply shifting toward agentic, AI-powered digital workers.
Somya Kapoor, CEO of IFSLoops, said: “Closing it takes more than general-purpose AI. Digital workers built for the job, integrated into the systems already running the business, are what let teams reclaim capacity instead of just working around the shortfall. Our customers prove that model in production, not pilots.”
Filling the capacity gap
The research describes a capacity gap, a widening distance between the work industrial organisations must do and the actual capacity of their teams.
According to the report, 77% of decision-makers have delayed or avoided a strategic initiative because their team lacked the capacity to pursue it. Adoption of digital workers has increased, with two businesses investing in digital workers over the next 12 months for every one that isn’t.
However, only 5.7% of decision-makers trust AI to act fully autonomously, even though 66% say they’re likely to invest in digital workers within the year.
Human-in-the-loop
Industrial companies still hold back from fully trusting automation, underscoring the need for human-in-the-loop AI deployment models. The model lets digital workers handle high-volume, well-defined tasks, but people still make judgment calls and critical approvals.
