I recently had the opportunity to join 4,000 IT and tech professionals at Info-Tech Live 2026 in Las Vegas to explore the technology driving modern organizations forward.
Agentic AI dominated the conversations at the event, but as I caught up with folks in the halls, a much more grounded concept kept cutting through the noise: practicality. The burning question is no longer if leaders should adopt AI, but how to systematically deploy AI and agents to drive actual business outcomes.
Leaders today are challenged to look at AI adoption, not just as an IT initiative, but as a holistic business function. When you strip away the hype, successfully pioneering this next era comes down to robust data governance, IT empowerment and leadership adaptability.
Five Agentic AI Best Practices
Think of AI agents like enthusiastic interns: they bring tons of potential to your teams, but they need strict boundaries and clear guidance before you let them loose. That balance between autonomy and control is precisely what Jeremy Roberts, Senior Director at Info-Tech Research Group, tackled in his closing keynote where he shared a tactical ‘cheat sheet’ of five event takeaways for successful agentic AI:
- Make IT Agentic Before the Enterprise – IT teams have a deep understanding of software limitations and change management, making them the ideal proving ground for agentic technology. Proving tangible business results in one controlled department helps build the baseline framework you need to safely scale AI across the rest of the enterprise.
- CIOs Have the Hardest Job – The corporate expectations placed on tech leaders are steadily increasing. As Roberts perfectly captured during the event: āWhen every company is a technology company ā every single one ā you are not merely a partner in that growth. You must be a leader. You must be an innovator.ā However, most IT departments are struggling with the basics. Unstructured data, disjointed systems and a lack of transparency eventually get back to stakeholders. To start building a foundation of trust, encourage your teams to run regular diagnostics. Success in the agentic era requires a clear look at your system’s weak points, so remediation can begin.
- Exponential CIOs Harness Their Data – Technology means nothing without a strong data foundation, but gathering files is only the first step. Data is useless without insight; insight is meaningless without decisions and decisions are only effective when actioned. That deliberate path ā moving from raw data to real-world action and strategic innovation ā is how leaders drive true transformation.
- Leadership is Not Keeping Up with AI – True organizational agility means evolving right alongside the technology. That requires a willingness to redesign workflows from scratch, build entirely new roles around the work AI creates and fundamentally rethink how we operate day-to-day. This is exactly where adaptable leaders will separate themselves from the pack. The hard truth is that you simply cannot run a business at AI speed if you are still clinging to old, manual processes.
- With Agentic AI, Buy-In Isn’t the Problem – You donāt have to sell leaders on the immense value of agentic AI. The real problem is in execution. The reason data governance took center stage in so many conversations at the conference is because too many companies have massive governance blind spots. Policies are written down on paper, but nobody is enforcing, updating or reviewing them. If your internal data is a chaotic, unmanaged wilderness, your digital interns are inevitably going to access the wrong files and learn the wrong behaviors.
As discussions at the conference highlighted, AI agents fail in very predictable ways. Keeping your initiatives on the rails isn’t about creating bureaucratic red tape ā it’s about establishing agentic AI best practices and governance frameworks to avoid common pitfalls and build an enterprise where every workflow safely connects to and informs the next.
Document Management Is More Important than Ever
Looking at the core takeaways from the conference, itās clear: document management is more critical than ever. A recent report from Info-Tech Research Group, āUnlocking Your Organizationās Content with AI-Powered Document Management,ā emphasizes the true value of content management systems in building that vital data foundation that so many leaders at the conference talked about. With embedded next-gen tools like AI-assisted search and data capture, along with agentic chat capabilities, these platforms have evolved far beyond digital filing cabinets. Intelligent document processing systems are now valuable business partners that help you scale securely.
āWith 80% to 90% of data being unstructured ā including text, video, audio, web server logs, and social media ā a significant competitive advantage awaits companies that can effectively tap into this largely unused resource.ā – 2025 MIT Sloan Report
The organizations that lead this new agentic era will be the ones that take control of their unstructured data and build a secure, practical foundation for their digital workforce to succeed.
Selecting an Agentic Vendor
With 62% of organizations citing agentic system complexity as their top deployment barrier, choosing the right agentic vendor is key.
Buying AI isn’t a standalone software purchase anymore; you have to evaluate the whole package ā from basic data tools to underlying models and infrastructure costs. That means instead of just chasing features, leaders need to look for an agentic vendor built on a secure data foundation that plugs directly into existing tech and includes built-in governance guardrails for safe AI adoption.
The right partner turns these complex hurdles into a confident step forward into the agentic era. To see this in practice, we recently teamed up with Info-Tech Research Group to look at how organizations like the City of Acworth are already driving real-world results with a reliable AI partner. Watch the on-demand webinar here to learn how practical agentic solutions can empower your teams and transform your business.
Published: June 26, 2026