Make better decisions on the agentic AI market

Updated October 202670+ pagesPDF

Agentic AI Reality Check
Cover of NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI Reality Check report, 2026 edition
Where do AI agents still fail when the work gets harder? AI agents pass the standard tests, then fail on harder, messier versions of the same work. On a computer, the best agent falls from 85% of tasks done to ~21%. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Salesforce or ServiceNow: whose agents do more work? Salesforce, by its own count. Agentforce passed $1.5B a year and Salesforce counts 7 billion units of agent work. ServiceNow signs over $1B of AI a year but does not say how much work its agents do. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Can AI agents now do computer work as well as people? On a computer, roughly yes: the best agent scores 85% on a cleaned-up version of the test, above the 72% people scored on the original. On websites and research, people still lead, but agents gained 50+ points in two to three years. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
How much expert work can an AI agent now do on its own? About 1.5 days of work, up from ~30 minutes in late 2024. The longer the task an agent can finish alone, the more capable it is, and that length doubles every ~4 months. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
How much cheaper is an AI agent than a human? On list prices, 7 to 14 times cheaper for a support ticket ($1-2 vs ~$13.50) and 2 to 5 times for a security alert. But platform fees and failed conversations handed back to humans are not in the sticker price. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Who is buying the startups that secure AI agents? Mostly big security firms, and fast: at least 12 deals recently, 8 of them in 2025. The biggest, Cyera’s purchase of Oasis, was worth $1B. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Is Sierra worth more than the software it wants to replace? Yes. Sierra, which sells AI customer-service agents, is worth $15.8B, more than Five9, NICE and Freshworks together ($13.2B). Those three expect ~$5.4B of sales in 2026, ~27 times Sierra’s ~$200M a year. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Which jobs are AI agents being funded to do? Coding and customer service first, with 39% of the money between them. But coding is mostly one company: Cognition took 79% of it. Legal agents get only 2%. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Is the money going to agents or to the tools behind them? To the agents, every year. ~$7 of every $8 raised recently went to agents that do a job. The tools behind them raised more each year, but their share fell from 15% to 13%. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.

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Inside the report

  • What has changed in the last 12 months
  • What works today, and what’s still hype
  • What are the biggest unsolved problems
  • What technologies are gaining traction
  • Who are the top companies today
  • Who’s ahead, and who’s falling behind
  • What are their valuations
  • Who’s getting funded, and by whom
  • Which business models are winning
  • Which investors are making the biggest bets
  • Where are the biggest opportunities
  • Who are the likely future winners
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Verified data with sourcesUpdated in October 2026