One read a week,
and why it matters.

I read a lot of research on agentic AI, consulting and how organisations actually change. Most weeks one piece is worth your time, so every Monday I pick it, pull out the number that matters and say what it means if you are the one who has to act on it. Every one links straight out to the original, so you can go and read it yourself.

Organisations building multi-agent systems went from 6% to 25% in one quarter, in KPMG's Q3 AI Pulse.

Who manages the agents?

Multi-agent systems went from 6% to 25% in a single quarter. Once agents work with each other, who can say why something went wrong, or right?

Read signal no. 013 →

Every signal

Organisations building multi-agent systems went from 6% to 25% in one quarter, in KPMG's Q3 AI Pulse.
Agentic AINo. 013

Who manages the agents?

Multi-agent systems went from 6% to 25% in a single quarter. Once agents work with each other, who can say why something went wrong, or right?

KPMG · 12 Oct 2026→
Gartner predicts 70% of enterprises will abandon agentic AI built by vendor forward-deployed engineers by 2028.
The New ConsultingNo. 012

When they leave, who runs it?

Forward-deployed engineering is a new name for an old question: when the people who built it leave, who takes over?

Gartner · 5 Oct 2026→
Only 23% of security leaders have applied monitoring or logging to agents.
Agentic AINo. 011

What did your agents do yesterday?

Everyone is counting AI agents, and far fewer organisations can say which ones exist, what each one can access and what it did yesterday.

BCG · 28 Sept 2026→
95% delayed or cancelled AI over data rules.
Agentic AINo. 010

The data rules are not what is stalling your AI

Nearly every enterprise has stalled an AI project in the last year, and the AI was not the problem. The data was built for a monthly report, not for an agent.

Cloudera · 21 Sept 2026→
39% expect AI job cuts. 14% have seen one.
Leadership & CultureNo. 009

The fear of AI job cuts keeps outrunning the payroll

A year ago 32% expected AI to cut jobs at their organisation. 14% saw it happen, and the forecast went up anyway.

McKinsey · 14 Sept 2026→
97% call AI a strategic priority. 13% see a financial return.
InnovationNo. 008

Logistics bought the tools and skipped the operating model

The money went in, the strategy exists, the budget exists. What did not arrive was a system.

BCG · 7 Sept 2026→
One task routed to a reasoning agent costs at least 5x a chatbot answer.
Agentic AINo. 007

Cheaper tokens, bigger bill

We see new models making it cheaper and increased competition reducing costs. Gartner are saying the opposite is happening.

Gartner · 31 Aug 2026→
93% of audit leaders report using AI. Only 38% have an AI strategy.
Leadership & CultureNo. 006

Adoption is not transformation

Near-universal AI use at the point where work gets produced, and almost none where it gets judged.

Gartner · 24 Aug 2026→
AI agents took 19 unsanctioned actions on the live internet, in 10 of 122 runs.
Agentic AINo. 005

The failure was authorisation, not containment

Britain’s AI Security Institute let its agents onto the real internet on purpose. What broke was the authority boundary, not the sandbox.

UK AI Security Institute · 17 Aug 2026→
64% of citizens now use AI weekly, up 26 points in two years.
Agentic AINo. 004

The public got ready first

Across 44 countries the public has granted permission for AI in public services. The operating answers are the part still missing.

BCG · 3 Aug 2026→
Ford rehired 350 veteran engineers to catch what its AI could not.
Leadership & CultureNo. 003

The AI rehire

Very few organisations measured what their people were actually doing before removing them, so the value only became visible once it had gone.

CNBC · 27 Jul 2026→
Jobs for under-25s in programming fell 44% in a year.
Career LessonsNo. 002

Borrowing against your own pipeline

The UK government flags the fall, admits it cannot prove AI caused it, and argues for acting anyway.

UK Government (DSIT) · 20 Jul 2026→
Nearly 60% of UAE businesses are exploring agentic commerce.
Agentic AINo. 001

Agents get real when they touch money

An agent that can browse is a demo. An agent that can pay is infrastructure.

Economy Middle East · 13 Jul 2026→

Escape the Deck

One honest read every fortnight on what agentic AI is doing to consulting, and what to do about it. For people moving from advice to outcomes, rebuilding a firm, or done buying decks. No hype, no fluff.