Cost management, governance and data quality move to the forefront
Governance is expanding to include both security and risk management as well as improved financial accountability as AI becomes a bigger part of business operations. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of organizations now include cost reviews in AI approval processes, up from 61% last quarter, while 70% use AI monitoring dashboards and 43% have implemented usage or token budgets.
As organizations improve visibility into AI spending and performance, they are also becoming more deliberate about where autonomy is appropriate. Nearly half of leaders (49%) have defined high-risk use cases where they do not allow autonomous decision-making by agents. At the same time, confidence in the ability to manage AI at scale has risen, with 73% of leaders expressing confidence in the governance and capabilities they have in place, a steep jump from 57% last quarter. The share of organizations building controls into their agents alongside monitoring and evaluation procedures also fell to 30% from 43% two quarters ago, as many are relying on guardrails already in place.
“Leaders are applying the same discipline and oversight they would to any other strategic investment," said Rahsaan Shears, AI Enterprise Transformation Leader at KPMG LLP. "As organizations get better at managing cost and risk, they are scaling what works. But governance is never finished. The challenge is enabling oversight to keep pace with the technology and evolve strategically to maintain safe, secure and responsible AI.”
Governance maturity is accelerating AI agent deployment and workforce adoption
Rising confidence in governance, combined with greater visibility into AI spending and clearer controls around data and model access, is helping accelerate AI agent deployment and workforce adoption across the enterprise.
Today, 62% of organizations report they are now building, deploying or developing AI agents, up from 53% last quarter. Notably, the percentage actively developing or implementing multi-agent systems climbed to 25%, compared to only 6% in the last two quarters. Employee adoption is rising in tandem. The share of organizations reporting significant workforce adoption increased to 44%, up from 23% last quarter and 10% a year ago.
The KPMG Quarterly AI Pulse Survey in the U.S. captured perspectives between July 24 and Aug. 25 from 314 U.S.-based C-suite and business leaders representing organizations with annual revenue of $1 billion or more. More than one-third have revenues of $10 billion or more. The U.S. insights are part of KPMG’s Global AI Pulse research.
