You're already moving on AI. Congratulations! Your company has deployed AI tools across the organization. Teams are experimenting with generative AI daily. You've greenlit pilot programs and invested significantly in AI initiatives. You've paid for company wide Copilot, and it wasn't cheap to pay for everybody to have that little AI assistant!
Yet despite all this activity, when you examine your bottom line, the impact is virtually invisible.
If this sounds familiar, you're experiencing what McKinsey calls the "gen AI paradox": Nearly eight in ten companies report using gen AI—yet just as many report no significant bottom-line impact. More than 80 percent of companies still report no material contribution to earnings from their gen AI initiatives, and only 1 percent of enterprises view their gen AI strategies as mature.
This isn't a technology problem. It's a strategy problem. And there is a solution—but it requires completely rethinking how you approach AI transformation.
The issue isn't that AI doesn't work. The issue is how you're implementing it.
Most companies have fallen into the "horizontal trap"—deploying enterprise-wide copilots and chatbots that make individual employees slightly more productive but don't fundamentally change how work gets done. Nearly 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies, for example, use Microsoft 365 Copilot, but the benefits are spread so thin across employees that they're barely visible in business metrics.
Meanwhile, the real game-changers—what McKinsey calls "vertical" or function-specific AI applications—remain stuck in pilot purgatory. Fewer than 10 percent of use cases deployed ever make it past the pilot stage.
Why? Six key barriers:
Here's what's different now: AI agents solve these problems.
Unlike traditional AI tools that wait for prompts, AI agents are autonomous, goal-driven systems that can:
Think of them less like advanced chatbots and more like digital employees.
Here's where most CEOs miss the mark: You can't just plug agents into existing workflows and expect magic.
The real breakthrough comes when you redesign entire business processes around agent capabilities. This means:
The difference? Complete process reinvention, not just task automation.
The shift to agentic AI isn't something you can delegate—it requires CEO leadership. Here's your playbook:
Right now: Conduct a structured review of all current AI initiatives. Retire unscalable pilots. Formally close the exploratory phase.
Then: Refocus efforts on 2-3 strategic AI programs targeting your highest-impact domains and processes.
Immediately: Set up a strategic AI council involving business leaders, your CHRO, CDO, and CIO.
Purpose: This council oversees AI direction-setting, coordinates AI/IT/data investments, and implements rigorous value-tracking based on business outcome KPIs—not technical metrics.
Select: One high-impact business process that crosses multiple systems and involves complex decision-making.
Approach: Don't automate the existing process. Reimagine it from scratch with agents at the center.
Parallel track: Begin building your agentic AI technology foundation—the "agentic AI mesh" that will orchestrate custom and off-the-shelf agents securely at scale.
To succeed with agentic AI, you need more than good intentions. You need these foundations:
Like any truly disruptive technology, AI agents have the power to reshuffle the deck. Done right, they offer laggards a leapfrog opportunity to rewire their competitiveness. Done wrong—or not at all—they risk accelerating the decline of today's market leaders.
Some leaders are already moving beyond deployment to organizational rewiring. Moderna, for example, merged its HR and IT leadership—signaling that AI isn't just a technical tool but a workforce-shaping force.
The gen AI paradox exists because most companies are using tomorrow's technology with yesterday's thinking. Agentic AI isn't an incremental improvement—it's the foundation of next-generation operating models.
The time for AI experimentation is over. The time for AI transformation is now.
As CEO, you have three choices:
The choice is yours. But remember: CEOs who act now won't just gain a performance edge. They will redefine how their organizations think, decide, and execute.
Ready to break through the AI paradox? Sentry Technology Solutions helps CEOs navigate the complex path from AI experimentation to agentic transformation. Our expert team creates clear strategic plans tailored to your specific business needs, ensuring your technology investments drive real bottom-line results. Learn more about how we can help you harness the power of AI to transform your business operations and competitive advantage.
Sources
Content, statistics, and quotes from McKinsey QuantumBlack's "Seizing the agentic AI advantage: A CEO playbook to solve the gen AI paradox and unlock scalable impact with AI agents," June 2025.