KPMG Q2 2026 AI Pulse: agent deployment now above 50%, focus shifts from experiments to pragmatism

What happened

KPMG released its Q2 2026 AI Pulse Survey, a quarterly snapshot of enterprise AI adoption. Headline: agent deployment is holding above 50% as organizations enter the second phase — orchestrating multiple agents across workflows.

Context and impact

The survey confirms what TechCrunch and CNBC have been describing as the 'tokenmaxxing-to-efficiency' shift — enterprise OpenAI and Anthropic customers are moving from unbounded token consumption to measurable ROI. For vendors that means pricing-per-token pressure but rising volumes.

Details

• AI agent deployment >50% of orgs
• Shift from experimentation to multi-agent orchestration
• Investment levels steady, but with higher ROI scrutiny
• Top use-cases: customer service, sales enablement, internal knowledge
• Barriers: legacy integration, governance