U.S. AI Spending Nearly Doubles to $207 Million as Agent Deployment Surges, But Skills Gaps and Governance Challenges Threaten ROI

U.S. AI spending nearly doubles to $207 million as agent deployment surges from 12% to 54%, but organizations face mounting pressure to close skills gaps and strengthen governance before they can fully realize returns on their rapidly growing investments.

• U.S. organizations project average AI spending of $207 million over the next 12 months, nearly double last year's figures, as AI agent deployment surges to 54% of organizations, up from just 12% in early 2024.
• Execution is now the key differentiator, with 65% of organizations citing difficulty scaling use cases and 62% pointing to skills gaps as the top barriers to ROI, driving 87% of leaders to prioritize upskilling and reskilling as their number one workforce focus.
• Governance is becoming a prerequisite for scale, with 91% of leaders saying data security and risk will shape their AI strategy, and human validation of AI agent outputs nearly tripling to 63%, up from 22% just one year ago.