OutSystems, in collaboration with CIO Dive and KPMG, has released new research highlighting a gap between enterprise confidence in AI agent governance and actual operational readiness.
The report, Engineering Business Outcomes: The Shift to Agentic Systems, found that 82% of executives believe their organisations can manage, integrate, and monitor AI agents as they move into production. However, only 26% feel well prepared to resolve conflicts across agents, systems, and automated workflows.
Tiago Azevedo, CIO of OutSystems, said: “That gap is where the real work happens. Having put agents to work across the business, I’ve learned that safety comes from building control into the platform, not reviewing it afterwards.”
Governance-readiness gap
Based on a survey of over 850 IT decision-makers, the report found that 83% rely on existing IT, security, or compliance processes, specialised reviews, or centralised policies and monitoring to oversee AI agents that can act autonomously across applications or workflows.
Only 5% have implemented automated controls, audit trails, and formal human review points.
The report also noted that Asia-Pacific leads in agentic AI readiness, with 39% of respondents in the region saying they are very well prepared to resolve AI agent conflicts. By comparison, only 29% in Europe and 18% in North America reported the same.
The region also leads in automated governance controls, with 14% reporting having automated controls, audit trails, and human review points in place, compared with 3% in Europe and 2% in North America.
Michael Harper, managing director at KPMG, said: “To bridge the gap between high confidence and true operational readiness, enterprises need the ability to execute policy- as-code and runtime guardrails. That gives businesses the autonomy to innovate while keeping end-to-end workflows secure, reliable, and focused on business outcomes.”
