The rise of 'agentic' in the enterprise workforce

Since the popularization of AI, enterprise employees have been told that they won't lose their jobs to the technology unless they refuse to use it.

Now it appears that many enterprise employees are paying attention, and organizations are asking them about their use of AI.

In SurveyMonkey’s Trends 2027 survey, a report in which the SaaS survey platform vendor evaluated “millions of surveys” from more than 260,000 organizations globally, it found that most surveys from August 2025 to August 2026 included the words "Claude," "agentic," and "prompting." SurveyMonkey found that three in ten workers now use AI daily, and many AI users say AI makes their current job feel more secure and less likely to be eliminated.

In this Q&A, Katie Miserany, SurveyMonkey’s chief communications officer, discusses what the upsurge in these AI buzzwords means for the enterprise work environment.

Why would you say that the word "agentic" has increased in survey titles over the last year?

Katie Miserany: It really mirrors this evolution, where last year we saw a big 85% jump in the use of AI, which isn't surprising at all. Now you're seeing words like ‘agentic’ and ‘Claude’ and more specific terms that show how the industry is maturing. The general workforce is now incorporating these tools into their work more.

In what way does this increase in the word "agentic" speak to the current working environment within enterprises?

Miserany: There's a lot that we're seeing where it's moving from how you feel about AI to a lot more specific tools and ways of working. What you're seeing there, to editorialize a little bit, is businesses just really trying to figure out how to make this real and operational for their people. One of the things that's increased a ton during that same period is the number of skills-training surveys.

The way people work and think about work is also shifting. How is it changing?

What does the significant uptick in mentions of Anthropic’s Claude reveal?