2025 in Review: The Year Agentic Workflows Went Mainstream

At the start of 2025, agentic workflows were still a curiosity for most organisations. By year’s end, they had become a standard part of the enterprise toolkit. Here is a look back at how the year unfolded and what we learned along the way.

From pilots to production

The defining shift of 2025 was the move from experimentation to production. Early in the year, most organisations were running small pilots - testing agents on low-risk tasks, gathering data, and building internal expertise.

By mid-year, the tone changed. Pilot results were strong enough to justify broader rollouts. Procurement teams started evaluating agentic platforms as seriously as they had once evaluated RPA tools. IT and operations leaders began planning for agents as a permanent part of their infrastructure.

Several factors drove this shift:

• Maturing platforms: Vendors delivered more reliable, enterprise-ready tools with better security, auditability and integration capabilities.
• Proven ROI: Early adopters published case studies showing measurable gains in efficiency, accuracy and customer satisfaction.
• Workforce readiness: Training programmes and change management practices caught up with the technology, making adoption smoother.

The use cases that scaled

Not every use case made the leap from pilot to production. The ones that scaled shared common characteristics:

• High volume: Processes with enough throughput to justify the investment.
• Clear rules: Domains where policies and procedures were well-defined, even if exceptions existed.
• Measurable outcomes: Workflows where success could be tracked and attributed.

Customer service, sales operations and internal support functions led the way. Document-heavy processes - onboarding, compliance checks, contract management - also saw significant traction.

More complex, judgement-intensive use cases remained in the pilot phase for most organisations, though progress was visible.

Lessons learned the hard way

No year of rapid adoption comes without missteps. Some common lessons emerged:

Integration is harder than it looks

Many organisations underestimated the effort required to connect agents to enterprise systems. APIs that seemed straightforward revealed edge cases, authentication challenges and data quality issues once agents started using them at scale.

Governance cannot be an afterthought

Organisations that rushed to production without robust governance found themselves scrambling. Agents made decisions that required explanation; audit trails were incomplete; risk teams raised concerns. Those who built governance in from the start had a much smoother journey.

Change management is non-negotiable

Technical success meant little if users did not trust or adopt the agents. Organisations that invested in communication, training and feedback loops saw faster adoption and fewer workarounds.

The vendor landscape evolved

The market for agentic platforms matured significantly in 2025. Early players refined their offerings; new entrants brought fresh approaches; established enterprise software vendors added agentic capabilities to their suites.

Key trends included:

• Consolidation: Some early-stage vendors were acquired by larger players seeking to accelerate their roadmaps.
• Specialisation: Niche platforms emerged for specific industries and use cases, offering pre-built workflows and domain expertise.
• Open ecosystems: The most successful platforms embraced openness, allowing customers to integrate their own models, tools and data sources.

By year’s end, the question was less “should we use agentic workflows?” and more “which platform fits our needs?”

Looking ahead

As 2025 closes, organisations are planning for what comes next. The focus is shifting from “can we do this?” to “how do we do this at scale?”

Key themes for the year ahead include:

• Operationalising agents: Building the teams, processes and infrastructure to manage agents as a permanent capability.
• Expanding use cases: Moving from low-risk pilots to higher-stakes, more complex workflows.
• Measuring real impact: Going beyond efficiency metrics to track business outcomes like revenue, customer retention and risk reduction.

The year that agentic workflows went mainstream was just the beginning. The real transformation is still ahead.