A survey published by Redwood Software reveals that 77% of senior technology, risk, and AI leaders have experienced negative consequences stemming from ungoverned artificial intelligence agents. Unexpected cloud infrastructure costs emerged as the most frequent pain point, closely followed by operational disruptions and regulatory compliance failures as agents interact directly with production environments. Although nearly nine in 10 respondents reported expanding their agentic AI deployments over the past year, only 58% maintain a formal, consistently enforced AI governance policy. Financial leaders face mounting challenges tracking return on investment, with less than half of surveyed executives expressing high confidence in their ability to accurately measure AI financial returns. Enterprise leaders note that legacy infrastructure integration and fragmented organizational accountability remain major barriers to establishing effective cross-departmental oversight for autonomous workflows.

Full report : New research highlights widespread operational disruptions, compliance issues, and unexpected cloud costs as companies deploy autonomous agents faster than governance frameworks can adapt.