July 2025
PYMNTS Data Book

The Two Faces of AI: Gen AI’s Triumph Meets Agentic AI’s Caution

CFOs are all in on Gen AI but slam the brakes on agentic AI. It’s not just about return on investment. It’s about trust, control and the fear of flying solo.

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    Generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) has rapidly become an indispensable tool for chief financial officers at enterprise-level companies, delivering significant returns and earning profound trust as it reshapes operational efficiency and strategic decision-making. Yet, as the industry looks to the next frontier of autonomous AI, a stark divergence emerges. The near-unanimous confidence in gen AI stands in sharp contrast to a pervasive caution and hesitant adoption of agentic AI. While gen AI empowers human operators, agentic AI demands a fundamental shift in control away from humans, a leap of faith that CFOs are not yet ready to take. This data book highlights seven key distinctions that underscore this critical chasm.

    Gen AI Trust and Usability vs. Agentic AI’s Cautious Outlook

    Return on Investment (ROI): A Tale of Two Technologies

    Gen AI: As of December 2024, nearly nine in 10 CFOs reported a very positive ROI when using gen AI tools, more than three times the share that did in March 2024. Conversely, the share reporting negligible ROI plummeted to 0% from 20% over the same period.

    Agentic AI: Despite universal familiarity with the concept, just 15% of CFOs surveyed are considering putting agentic AI to work in their companies, with 85% having no current plans.

    Trust in Output: High Conviction vs. Deep Hesitation

    Gen AI: CFOs view the technology as highly trustworthy, with at least 91% expressing high or complete trust in its output across 10 key areas. Specifically, 97% trust it for risk management and 98% for strategic planning and financial reporting.

    Agentic AI: While championing its autonomy, executives are quietly questioning if agentic AI is “battle-ready.” Despite nearly universal familiarity, execution-level confidence is not yet there, leading to just 15% of executives considering deployment.

    Use Case Expansion: Surging Adoption vs. Stalled Pilots

    Gen AI: Use has caught on sharply, with CFOs reporting its application in four more areas by December 2024 compared to March. Usage for high-impact tasks, such as cybersecurity management, surged to 75% (up from 28%), and customer service chatbots rose to 83% (up from 42%).

    Agentic AI: Among the limited number of CFOs considering agentic AI, only 11% are running pilots or proof-of-concept trials, while 89% remain in the evaluation phase.

    Operational Model: Human Enhancement vs. Autonomous Control

    Gen AI: The software is largely seen as a tool to enhance productivity and human capabilities, with most tasks still requiring significant human intervention; for example, nearly three-quarters (73%) of CFOs need human involvement for generating new content.

    Agentic AI: This new form of AI promises to turn processes into “a continuous, autonomous, automated predictive engine,” requiring CFOs to “let go of the wheel in a big way.” This shift is reflected in the fact that just 15% of CFOs are even considering putting agentic AI to work.

    Budgetary Commitments: Cooling Investment vs. Spillover Caution

    Gen AI: While gen AI has become essential, investment is slowing, with just 27% of firms increasing their gen AI budgets in 2025, down significantly from 53% a year ago.

    Agentic AI: This contraction in gen AI investment likely spills over to agentic AI, which demands even greater confidence and trust before firms commit time, budgets and cross-functional leadership. As a result, among CFOs considering adoption, 89% say their organizations are still evaluating its relevance and fit.

    Strategic Importance: Core Dependence vs. Conceptual Stage

    Gen AI: Nine in 10 CFOs now state that gen AI is very or extremely important to financial planning and analysis, demonstrating a growing operational dependence on the technology across core financial functions.

    Agentic AI: Companies are not accelerating their use of agentic tools. Despite its potential, agentic AI remains an “idea, not a project,” with 89% of CFOs considering adoption still in the evaluation phase, and no medium- or low-impact CFOs evaluating or testing it.

    Catalyst for Adoption: Gen AI Success as a Prerequisite

    Gen AI’s Role: Firms reporting strong ROI from gen AI are twice as likely to increase their spending.

    Agentic AI’s Dependency: CFOs are more likely to trust agentic AI if they’ve already been successful with gen AI. Highly automated firms are three times more likely to consider agentic AI adoption than their low-automation peers, with 67% of highly automated firms weighing agentic adoption compared to just 11% of low-automation peers.

    Conclusion

    The data clearly illustrates a dual reality in the adoption of enterprise AI. While gen AI has demonstrably proven its value and earned the deep trust of CFOs through tangible ROI and widespread application, agentic AI, despite its transformative promise of full autonomy, faces significant hurdles rooted in trust deficits and a cautious, wait-and-see approach. The path forward for agentic AI hinges on building confidence, perhaps by proving its reliability in environments already familiar and successful with gen AI’s capabilities.

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    PYMNTS INTELLIGENCE

    PYMNTS Intelligence is a leading global data and analytics platform that uses proprietary data and methods to provide actionable insights on what’s now and what’s next in payments, commerce and the digital economy. Its team of data scientists includes leading economists, econometricians, survey experts, financial analysts and marketing scientists with deep experience in the application of data to the issues that define the future of the digital transformation of the global economy. This multi-lingual team has conducted original data collection and analysis in more than three dozen global markets for some of the world’s leading publicly traded and privately held firms.

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