IBM: Agentic AI is reshaping governance, controls and trust

LONDON -- Agentic AI is changing business operations, but the pressure to keep up with rapid advancements means many are using tools without knowing where they will lead.

That was a central theme at IBM’s Think on Tour EMEA 2026 conference on Wednesday, where executives argued that trust, governance and oversight are now as important to business outcomes as transformation itself.

In her keynote, Ana Paula Assis, senior vice president and chair for EMEA and APAC at IBM, said 80% of executives expect AI to drive revenue growth, yet only 20% can explain exactly how that will happen.

The stakes are rising as businesses move beyond chatbots toward agents capable of carrying out tasks and making decisions with less human intervention. IBM research presented at the event found that three-quarters of surveyed executives across EMEA expected an agent to execute a complete business task and make a decision without human intervention by 2027. Meanwhile, 80% said at least one AI-related problem had reached the boardroom or C-suite.

“The question now is: Can we operate it at scale safely, reliably?” Assis said. “That is not a technology problem. That is an operating problem, and it requires a fundamentally different, new AI operating model.”

Applying AI without losing control

Michael Nimhauser, global head of sovereignty at Atos, a France-based IT services and consulting firm, said organizations were attracted by AI’s potential but worried about losing control as adoption accelerated.

“With all of the stars in their eyes and the potential, they also have a lot of fear of loss of control,” he said.

That concern extends beyond where data is stored to include control over infrastructure, models and the systems coordinating AI agents. To combat this, Nimhauser (alongside other speakers at the conference) argued that governance must be built into the architecture from the outset.

“It needs to be by design,” he said. “It cannot be an afterthought.”