While AI certainly has the potential to change enterprise operations for the better, it also can present a few “insidious” challenges for IT leaders, according to analysts at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo going on this week in Orlando, Fla.
Daryl Plummer warned of a potential darker side to AI developments in his presentation of the firm’s Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2026 and Beyond.
“The risks and opportunities of rapid technology change are increasingly affecting human behavior and choices,” stated Plummer, vice president, distinguished analyst and Gartner Fellow. “To properly prepare for the future, CIOs and executive leaders should prioritize behavioral changes alongside technological changes as first-order priorities.”
Among those risks are a decline in critical thinking skills, AI-related safety failures, and fragmentation of the AI landscape.
On the skills front, Gartner warns that atrophy of critical-thinking skills, due to GenAI use, will push 50% of global organizations to require “AI-free” skills assessments through 2026. “As enterprises expand their use of GenAI, hiring practices will begin to differentiate sharply between candidates who can think independently and those who lean too heavily on machine-generated output,” Gartner stated. “Recruitment will increasingly emphasize the ability to demonstrate problem-solving, evidence evaluation and judgment without AI assistance.”
“This shift will lengthen hiring processes and intensify competition for talent with proven cognitive capabilities. In high-stakes industries, such as finance, healthcare, and law, the scarcity of such talent will raise acquisition costs and force companies to develop new sourcing and assessment strategies. Specialized testing methods and platforms designed to isolate human reasoning ability are likely to emerge, creating a secondary market for AI-free evaluation tools and services,” Gartner stated.
Increasing legal claims against AI-induced safety problems related to autonomous vehicle or medical accidents are also a mounting concern, Plummer stated. By the end of 2026, “death by AI” legal claims will exceed 1,000 globally due to insufficient AI risk guardrails, Plummer stated.
“As regulatory scrutiny intensifies, organizations will face pressure not only to meet minimum legal obligations but also to prioritize safety and transparency in their business systems using AI guardrails. Somewhat paradoxically, companies will likely showcase either their AI use or lack thereof to differentiate themselves from competitors and mitigate the risk of potential litigation,” Gartner stated.
Uniform, global AI deployments will be a challenge for large corporations, according to Gartner, as AI markets shift due to regional requirements. By 2027, 35% of countries will be locked into region-specific AI platforms using proprietary contextual data, the firm predicts.
“The AI landscape will fragment as technical and geopolitical factors force organizations to localize solutions, responding to strict regulations, linguistic diversity, and cultural alignment. Universal AI solutions will fade as regional differences grow,” Gartner stated. “Multinational companies will face complex challenges deploying uniform AI across global markets and will have to manage multiple platform partnerships, each with unique compliance and data governance demands.”
Not all the AI trends are negative, of course, but many will present challenges for IT leaders. The remainder of Gartner’s predictions for IT organizations address AI’s influence on productivity tools, hiring processes, customer service, business-to-business transactions, and governance.
GenAI and agents will shake up productivity tool space
Through 2027, GenAI and AI agent use will create the first true challenge to mainstream productivity tools in 30 years, prompting a $58 billion market shakeup, Gartner stated. “GenAI changes will allow organizations to prioritize requirements to GenAI innovations that accelerate work completion. Legacy formats and compatibility will decline in importance, reducing barriers to entry and resulting in new competition from a wide array of vendors,” the firm stated.
AI infiltrates hiring processes
By 2027, 75% of hiring processes will include certifications and testing for workplace AI proficiency during recruiting, Gartner stated.
“Within the next two years, expect to see many organizations implementing practical AI proficiency assessments in their hiring processes,” Plummer stated. “These standardized frameworks and targeted surveys allow companies to understand candidate proficiency and close gaps in AI skills within their workforce. This trend will be especially pronounced for jobs where information capture, retention, and synthesis are major components.”
As generative AI skills become increasingly correlated with salaries, motivated candidates will place a significantly higher premium on acquiring AI skills and need to demonstrate those abilities to solve problems, improve productivity, and make sound decisions, Gartner stated.
Make way for AI agents
- By 2028, organizations that leverage multiagent AI for 80% of customer-facing business processes will dominate the market, Gartner stated. “Organizations that fail to adopt multiagent AI for their CRM organizational processes risk losing competitive advantage as customer expectations for low effort, rapid service become the norm,” Gartner stated. “Moreover, customers who find low-effort experiences often stay with the supplier/brand because of the better experience.”
- By 2028, 90% of B2B buying will be AI agent intermediated, pushing over $15 trillion of B2B spend through AI agent exchanges, Gartner stated. “In this new ecosystem, verifiable operational data becomes a currency, fueling a data feed economy where digital trust frameworks and verifiability are prerequisites for participation. Products designed with composable microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless architectures will establish a significant competitive moat.” New commercial models will emerge, featuring high-frequency, frictionless sales powered by AI agents that can radically compress the sales cycle for a large range of business and technology purchases, Gartner stated.
- By 2030, 22% of monetary transactions will be programmable to include terms and conditions of use, to give AI agents economic agency. “The rise of machine customers, such as AI agents with economic agency, will increase demand for programmable financial infrastructure, create new markets, facilitate autonomous financing and enable products that automatically adapt to changing needs. As a result, stablecoins, deposit tokens and tokenized real-world assets are evolving into mainstream financial instruments for enterprise use,” Gartner stated.
Regulation
By 2027, fragmented AI regulation will grow to cover 50% of the world’s economies, driving $5 billion in compliance investment, according to Gartner.
“AI transformation is being built on AI governance. With more than 1,000 AI laws proposed last year, no two have a consistent definition of AI. AI governance can become an enabler or a barrier. While technology helps, AI literacy unlocks power. AI governance programs, with dedicated headcount and specialized software, will become the norm to manage new and evolving AI risks independent of security,” Gartner stated.