Latest news with #WoodsonMartin
Scoop
23-07-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Custom AI Agents Signal Major Workforce And Development Shifts, Says OutSystems Study
Custom AI agents are poised to reshape how enterprises build software and structure their workforces, according to new research from OutSystems. The global survey of 550 software executives found that 93% of companies are actively developing or planning to develop their own AI agents, highlighting the fast-growing adoption of so-called 'agentic AI'. The study, created with CIO Dive and KPMG, suggests businesses are embracing AI agents as a strategic response to mounting pressure for digital transformation, faster innovation, and cost-efficient operations. Agentic AI offers a solution by automating complex processes, integrating siloed systems, and enabling personalised digital interactions at scale. 'AI agents are no longer just a concept—they're becoming operational building blocks within organisations,' said Woodson Martin, CEO of OutSystems. 'Soon, they'll function like specialised digital teams, identifying business opportunities and refining solutions without direct human intervention.' Beyond streamlining development cycles, AI agents are altering the makeup of software teams. OutSystems' data shows that nearly 70% of executives expect AI to introduce new, specialised roles such as agent orchestration and oversight positions. Additionally, 63% anticipate significant reskilling of existing staff to manage and work alongside AI tools. AI's business value is also becoming clearer: more than half of respondents cited improved customer experiences, accelerated software development timelines, and the automation of repetitive tasks as key benefits. Customer service leads current AI agent deployment, but executives are eyeing broader use across product development, marketing, and supply chains. However, the study also underscores risks tied to AI proliferation. Governance and compliance concerns top the list, alongside fears over the transparency of AI decision-making and the growing technical debt caused by uncoordinated AI deployments. Michael Harper of KPMG LLP noted, 'Many organisations that began with cautious AI pilots are now seeing tangible productivity and quality gains. This is giving them the confidence to integrate AI more broadly into their operations.' As businesses increasingly lean on AI-powered autonomy to scale and innovate, the emergence of AI agents signals a turning point not just for software development, but for workforce strategy and organisational design.
Techday NZ
21-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Most software executives plan custom AI agents to drive change
New research indicates that 93% of software executives are planning to develop or are already developing custom AI agents within their organisations, reflecting a significant shift towards agentic AI adoption across the industry. The report, titled Navigating Agentic AI & Generative AI in Software Development: Human-Agent Collaboration is Here , was commissioned by OutSystems in partnership with CIO Dive and KPMG. Surveying 550 global software executives, it explores how artificial intelligence is affecting the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and the workplace at large. AI changing software development With technology budgets scrutinised and outcomes under pressure, IT leaders are increasingly turning to agentic AI to address operational hurdles such as fragmented toolsets and siloed data. Businesses are reporting that agentic AI enables them to automate key workflows, offer more personalised digital services, and innovate rapidly - all while maintaining compliance, security, and governance standards. Woodson Martin, Chief Executive Officer of OutSystems, commented, "The software development lifecycle is undergoing a significant transformation as organizations increase AI investments to maintain their competitive edge. Blending AI with development tools enables IT leaders to manage this shift effectively and securely. In a near future, AI agents acting as highly specialized teams will continuously monitor business needs, identify opportunities, and proactively refine software solutions, allowing developers and business leaders to play a more creative role and focus on strategic priorities. This report underscores how AI advancements are reshaping traditional roles and unlocking opportunities for innovation and collaboration between humans and technology." Survey respondents highlighted concrete results from AI adoption: more than two thirds reported increased developer productivity and higher-quality software with fewer bugs. Additionally, 62% noted improved scalability in development, while 60% cited greater efficiency in testing and quality assurance (QA). Impacts on the workforce The report projects that experimentation with agentic AI and its uptake over the next 24 months will drive organisational change. According to the survey, 69% of software executives expect AI to introduce new, more specialised roles - including oversight, governance, prompt engineering, agent architecture, and agent orchestration - to adapt to AI's evolving function within companies. Furthermore, 63% of respondents said AI will require considerable upskilling or reskilling of existing teams to meet the skills needed in this new landscape. Where AI is being used Almost half (46%) of executives report their organisations already integrate agentic AI into workflows, with a further 28% in the piloting stage. The most anticipated area for AI agent deployment is customer support, with 49% planning to use AI agents to handle customer inquiries and support functions autonomously. The focus on customer service exceeds other domains such as product development (38%), sales and marketing (32%), supply chain management (28%), human resources (24%), and finance and accounting (23%). Drivers and risks associated with AI The primary goals for AI adoption, as expressed by over half the respondents, include improving customer experience (56%), automating repetitive tasks (55%), accelerating software development (54%), and advancing broader digital transformation objectives (53%). However, the report also identifies significant challenges. 64% of software executives cited risks around governance, security, and compliance with widespread AI adoption. An equal proportion expressed concerns regarding transparency and reliability of AI decisions. The proliferation of disparate AI tools has led to new issues with oversight and increasing technical debt, with 44% identifying AI sprawl as a growing risk. Addressing these burdens will be critical in ensuring AI's long-term value for business. Building confidence in AI tools Michael Harper, Managing Director at KPMG LLP, noted, "A lot of organizations started with pilots a year ago or even prior to that, but now they're starting to see real efficiency gains in areas like code generation and application testing. Those activities are giving organizations more confidence in using these tools and helping them to move forward." The survey covered executives from a range of industries and geographies, including IT consultancy, manufacturing, banking, financial services, and insurance, with data collected across the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France, Canada, Australia, India, and Germany.
Korea Herald
21-07-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
The AI Agent Arms Race: Latest OutSystems AI Study Reveals 93% of Software Executives Plan to Introduce Custom AI Agents Within Their Organizations
AI-powered app development leader reports growing adoption of agentic AI, signaling shifts in workforce skills and software development dynamics SINGAPORE, July 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- New research from OutSystems, a leading AI-powered low-code development platform, points to an increasing trend in agentic AI prioritization among software executives, with 93% of organizations already developing—or planning to develop—their own custom AI agents. The report, Navigating Agentic AI & Generative AI in Software Development: Human-Agent Collaboration is Here, was completed in collaboration with CIO Dive and KPMG, exploring the widespread use of AI across the SDLC in businesses around the world. Today's IT leaders are under immense pressure to deliver measurable business value while managing constrained resources and aligning technology investments with long-term strategic goals. The introduction of agentic AI helps address these demands by tackling challenges that traditional technology approaches can often exacerbate: fragmented tools, and limited ability to leverage data siloed across the organization and integrate its existing systems. With agentic AI, leaders can automate large-scale processes, create hyper-personalized digital experiences, and drive innovation with agility. Capable of enabling seamless enterprise-wide data access and upholding rigorous standards for compliance, security, and governance, agentic AI is poised to transform business processes and experiences and help organizations embrace an AI-first future. "The software development lifecycle is undergoing a significant transformation as organizations increase AI investments to maintain their competitive edge. Blending AI with development tools enables IT leaders to manage this shift effectively and securely," said Woodson Martin, CEO of OutSystems. "In a near future, AI agents acting as highly specialized teams will continuously monitor business needs, identify opportunities, and proactively refine software solutions, allowing developers and business leaders to play a more creative role and focus on strategic priorities. This report underscores how AI advancements are reshaping traditional roles and unlocking opportunities for innovation and collaboration between humans and technology." The OutSystems report, which includes survey responses from 550 global software executives, examines how AI adoption is transforming software development processes, with measurable impacts. More than two thirds of respondents reported increased developer productivity, and improved software quality through fewer bugs. 62 percent of respondents also reported improved scalability of development efforts, and 60 percent pointed to gains in enhanced testing and quality assurance (QA) efficiency. With AI acting as the catalyst for a reimagined software development process, these advancements go beyond efficiency gains. They're empowering developers to shift their focus from repetitive tasks to crafting unique solutions in partnership with business leaders and solving more complex user challenges, leading to the creation of new roles and improved innovative agility and scalability. The report also found that increases in and experimentation with agentic AI over the next 24 months will spur workforce transformation and innovation throughout the organization. The majority of software executives (69%), anticipate AI will introduce new, more specialized roles (e.g., oversight, governance, prompt engineering, agent architect, and agent orchestration) to accommodate the evolving role AI will play within organizations. More than three out of five respondents (63%) also feel that AI will require substantial upskilling or reskilling within existing development teams. Additional key findings from the report include: "A lot of organizations started with pilots a year ago or even prior to that, but now they're starting to see real efficiency gains in areas like code generation and application testing," says Michael Harper, Managing Director at KPMG LLP. "Those activities are giving organizations more confidence in using these tools and helping them to move forward." [METHODOLOGY] The research surveyed 550 software executives around the world whose companies span IT consultancy services, manufacturing, banking, financial services and insurance among others. The primary objective of the survey was to gather insights on AI and agentic AI adoption in the software development lifecycle from IT leaders. This survey was conducted between April 25, 2025 and May 5, 2025 across the U.S., U.K., Japan, France, Canada, Australia, India and Germany. About OutSystems OutSystems is a leading AI-powered low-code development platform, empowering IT leaders with a better way to build the software that matters most. The OutSystems platform helps companies develop, deploy, and maintain mission-critical applications by unifying and automating the entire software lifecycle. With OutSystems, organizations leverage gen AI to deliver software instantaneously, adapt faster to changing requirements, and reduce technical debt by building on a future-proof platform. Helping customers achieve their business goals by addressing key strategic initiatives, OutSystems delivers production software up to 10x faster than traditional development. Recognized as a leader by analysts, IT executives, business leaders, and developers around the world, global brands trust OutSystems to tackle their impossible projects and turn their big ideas into software that moves their business, people, and the world forward. Founded in 2001, the company's network spans more than 800,000 community members, over 500 partners, and active customers in 75+ countries across 21 industries. Learn more at .
Channel Post MEA
16-07-2025
- Business
- Channel Post MEA
OutSystems Unveils Agent Workbench To Accelerate AI Innovation
OutSystems has announced the Early Access Program for OutSystems Agent Workbench. Agent Workbench enables enterprises to create and orchestrate intelligent agents for any use case—and across any department, workflow, or data—with enterprise-grade security and control. Delivered on OutSystems trusted platform, Agent Workbench makes it easier than ever for pragmatic leaders to innovate at speed and orchestrate human-AI collaboration. 'Organizations are excited by the promise of AI and agentic systems, but are struggling with endless pilots and ungoverned tool sprawl while the business impact stalls. Legacy systems, siloed data, fragmented AI tools, and complex AI development cycles are slowing progress,' said Woodson Martin, CEO of OutSystems. 'We built Agent Workbench to make it possible to unlock custom agents as a true business enabler—not an experiment.' With everything organizations need to create and scale enterprise-grade agents, OutSystems Agent Workbench simplifies the transformation of existing business applications, workflows, and tools into intelligent, agentic systems that can reason, plan, and act. IT teams can embed agentic AI into enterprise-wide operations without disrupting current workflows or rearchitecting core systems—accelerating adoption and time to value. From connecting to custom AI models to creating and orchestrating agents that work across all enterprise applications and data, Agent Workbench makes AI a driver of enterprise innovation. With Agent Workbench, organizations of any size can: Build and scale AI agents that work across the entire enterprise effortlessly and safely for real-time goal interpretation, option evaluation, and decision-making, while controlling tool sprawl through a single platform. for real-time goal interpretation, option evaluation, and decision-making, while controlling tool sprawl through a single platform. Seamlessly integrate with custom AI models or leading third-party providers like Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock to centralize control over AI and data access, decrease cost, and enable multi-vendor utilization. like Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock to centralize control over AI and data access, decrease cost, and enable multi-vendor utilization. Ground AI agents with a unified data fabric that connects to diverse enterprise data sources, such as existing OutSystems 11 data and actions, relational databases, data lakes, knowledge retrieval systems like Kendra and Azure AI Search, and even agent memory of past interactions, to ensure accurate and context-rich responses across workflows. such as existing OutSystems 11 data and actions, relational databases, data lakes, knowledge retrieval systems like Kendra and Azure AI Search, and even agent memory of past interactions, to ensure accurate and context-rich responses across workflows. Orchestrate multi-agent workflows where agents dynamically adjust process flows based on an understanding of all enterprise systems, with real-time context, reasoning, and decisions to tackle complex tasks—whether working in parallel, sequentially, or hierarchically. This enables collaborative task execution, escalation handling, and human intervention when necessary. where agents dynamically adjust process flows based on an understanding of all enterprise systems, with real-time context, reasoning, and decisions to tackle complex tasks—whether working in parallel, sequentially, or hierarchically. This enables collaborative task execution, escalation handling, and human intervention when necessary. Monitor agent performance enterprise-wide with real-time logging, error tracing, and built-in guardrails to ensure transparent, reliable decision-making. Gain full visibility into how AI agents operate at every step—making it easy to audit, troubleshoot behavior, and prevent hallucinations, while building trust through explainability and control.
Techday NZ
16-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
OutSystems launches Agent Workbench to accelerate AI in business
OutSystems has introduced Agent Workbench, a platform designed to help enterprises develop and manage custom artificial intelligence agents across business operations. The company has launched an Early Access Programme for Agent Workbench, intended to simplify the integration of AI agents into existing workflows and data environments with an emphasis on security and control. The tool aims to allow organisations to design, orchestrate, and monitor intelligent agents for various use cases without needing to overhaul their current systems. Woodson Martin, Chief Executive Officer of OutSystems, described the need for Agent Workbench, noting the challenges faced by businesses seeking to implement AI technologies within enterprise settings. "Organisations are excited by the promise of AI and agentic systems, but are struggling with endless pilots and ungoverned tool sprawl while the business impact stalls. Legacy systems, siloed data, fragmented AI tools, and complex AI development cycles are slowing progress," said Woodson Martin. "We built Agent Workbench to make it possible to unlock custom agents as a true business enabler - not an experiment." Agent Workbench is delivered on the OutSystems platform and is positioned as a tool for enterprises to accelerate AI adoption and enable the integration of intelligent agents into day-to-day business operations. The platform is designed to transform existing business applications into agentic systems that can reason, plan, and act autonomously. Features and integration The OutSystems Agent Workbench provides several capabilities to help organisations deploy AI-powered agents across their departments, applications, and data environments. It allows IT teams to embed agentic AI into operations without disrupting current workflows or requiring significant architectural changes. Organisations using Agent Workbench can build and scale AI agents throughout the enterprise, providing functionalities such as real-time goal interpretation, option evaluation, and decision-making. The platform offers a centralised approach to manage these capabilities, aiming to reduce the spread of disparate tools. Agent Workbench supports integration with customised AI models or third-party providers, including Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock. This enables companies to centralise AI and data access while managing costs and supporting multi-vendor strategies. Unified data and workflow orchestration The platform grounds AI agents with a unified data fabric, allowing connections to a variety of data sources. These include existing OutSystems 11 data, relational databases, data lakes, knowledge retrieval systems such as Kendra and Azure AI Search, and agent memory of previous interactions. This is intended to ensure AI agents provide contextually relevant and accurate responses across workflows. Orchestration of multi-agent workflows is also possible, where agents adapt their actions using real-time understanding of enterprise systems. Tasks can be handled collaboratively by agents in parallel, sequential, or hierarchical arrangements and allow for escalation and human intervention when required. Governance and monitoring Enterprise-wide monitoring of agent performance is supported through features like real-time logging, error tracing, and in-built guardrails for reliability and transparency. Organisations gain visibility into the operations of AI agents, which can help in auditing and troubleshooting agent behaviour, and in preventing erroneous outputs. The OutSystems Agent Workbench Early Access Programme is open to organisations interested in participating before general availability later in the year.
