96% of IT pros use AI now: Their top 7 agentic applications and biggest implementation roadblocks
A recent survey reveals that 96% of IT professionals are using AI, though only half are frequent users. Many are optimistic about the future of AI, with 59% planning to employ AI agents within a year. However, significant challenges remain, including the need for human oversight and difficulties in explaining AI outputs to decision-makers.
- ▪96% of IT professionals report using AI, but only 49% are frequent users.
- ▪59% of respondents predict they will actively employ AI agents within the next 12 months.
- ▪The biggest barrier to AI implementation is the difficulty in interpreting AI outputs for business decision-makers.
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| Original publisher | ZDNet |
| Canonical URL | https://www.zdnet.com/article/96-of-it-pros-use-ai-now-their-top-7-agentic-applications-and-biggest-implementation-roadblocks/ |
| Publication time | Thu, 21 May 2026 19:57:42 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-21T20:01:35.710Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-21T20:01:35.710Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 2_2lj6HnMVp1 |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Innovation Home Innovation Artificial Intelligence 96% of IT pros use AI now: Their top 7 agentic applications and biggest implementation roadblocks A new study points to an emerging skill set that is becoming more valuable in the AI age: validating AI outputs. Written by Joe McKendrick, Contributing WriterContributing Writer May 21, 2026 at 12:57 p.m. PT SS STD/ShutterstockFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Nearly all data and IT pros use AI, but few are heavy users. Many would give AI agents unrestricted data access. AI data prep and validation take about 10 hours a week.If you're curious about what's happening in the eye of the artificial intelligence storm, look no further than what the data analysts of the world are up to.
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