AvePoint Research Reveals AI Visibility Gaps Have Nearly Tripled as AI Agents Scale and Almost Half of Enterprise Employees Now Rely on Agents Daily or Weekly

Third annual State of AI Report finds organizations lack the trust layer required to scale AI safely, as governance gaps, deployment delays, and AI-generated data are compounding the challenge

Key Findings:

Up to 1 in 5 organizations don't know whether employees are using unsanctioned AI tools, a visibility gap that has nearly tripled since 2025 for generative AI (6.3% to 17.6%) and is even higher for AI agents at 21.1%
More than 4 in 5 organizations are confident in their ability to prevent unauthorized AI-related data access, yet up to 72% of confident organizations still experienced an unauthorized access incident in the past 12 months
Nearly 9 in 10 organizations delayed both agentic and generative AI deployments by an average of almost six months, citing data security and governance concerns as the primary cause
35.5% of enterprise data is now AI-generated; this figure is expected to reach 42.1% within 12 months, expanding the surface that governance must cover
46.9% of employees rely on AI agents daily or weekly, yet 88.4% of organizations experienced at least one agent-related security incident in the past year, driving investment toward third-party governance tools and emerging AI Agent Management Platforms (AMPs) as the top planned investment for the next 12 months

JERSEY CITY. N.J., June 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AvePoint (Nasdaq: AVPT; SGX: AVP), the global leader in AI data protection, unifying data security, governance, and resilience, today released its third annual State of AI Report: Scaling Trust, Control, and Readiness in the Agentic Era. The report finds that AI has scaled into everyday work, and organizations have less visibility into what employees are using than they did a year ago. The percentage of organizations unable to determine whether employees are using unsanctioned AI tools has nearly tripled, from 6.3% in 2025 to 17.6% in 2026. For AI agents specifically, that blind spot is higher still, with 21.1% of organizations unable to account for unsanctioned agent activity.

The findings underscore why organizations are increasingly seeking a trust layer for AI: an operational foundation of visibility, governance, and enforceable control that scales alongside AI adoption.

The study, conducted in partnership with Osterman Research, surveyed 750 enterprise leaders with direct responsibility for information management, data security, or AI programs across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.

"Nearly half of global employees are already relying on AI agents weekly or daily, and organizations are deploying agents faster than they are building the foundations required to trust them," said Dr. Tianyi Jiang (TJ), CEO and Co-Founder, AvePoint. "The constraint on enterprise AI is no longer model capability, but whether organizations have built a trust layer: the data visibility, governance, and enforceable control required to scale AI with confidence. Without it, speed of deployment becomes speed of exposure."

AI Agents Are Scaling and Organizations Are Losing Visibility as They Do

46.9% of global employees utilize AI agents on a weekly or daily basis, and work processes that incorporate AI agents are expected to double in the next 12 months. At the same time, organizations anticipate that AI agents will replace more than 25% of human work within 12 months and nearly half within five years. Notably, reducing headcount ranks last among the reasons organizations are adopting AI agents. Instead, ROI is being measured by cost displacement: reducing manual efforts, compressing process times, and reallocating human capacity to higher-value work. The shift is also driving the rise of AI FinOps, an emerging discipline required as organizations seek to tie agent spend directly to measurable business outcomes.

As adoption accelerates, visibility, agent management, and data protection are not keeping pace:

21.1% of organizations do not know whether employees are using unsanctioned tools to create AI agents, higher than the already alarming 17.6% who lack visibility into unsanctioned generative AI use
The top concern around AI agents is agents making incorrect judgments or taking actions that damage data, followed closely by agents bypassing human-in-the-loop controls
Cybersecurity response is the top-rated AI agent use case, but it is also among the highest-risk deployments when data protection and governance foundations are not in place

The Governance Gap Is Widening, and Confidence Alone Is Not Closing It

Organizations are misjudging their own exposure to unauthorized AI data access:

82.7% of respondents report being "very" or "extremely" confident in their ability to prevent unauthorized data access
Yet 72% of the "very confident" group and 62% of the "extremely confident" group have experienced an AI-related unauthorized access incident in the last 12 months

The visibility gap is showing up directly in governance outcomes. In 2025, 75.1% of organizations reported at least one generative AI-related security breach. In 2026, that figure rose to 89.5%, signaling systemic governance gaps rather than isolated failures. For AI agents, 88.4% experienced at least one security breach in the past 12 months.

These gaps are also delaying AI value. 86.9% of organizations delayed generative AI deployments by an average of nearly six months due to data security and management concerns. For AI agents, the figure is nearly identical at 86%. Organizations cannot scale AI until they can trust and control the data it depends on, and the market is actively seeking solutions that close this gap.

The data reveals that confidence does not match competence, especially as many organizations still measure readiness by whether a policy exists, not by whether controls are operational, enforceable, and auditable when it matters most.

“Trust in AI cannot be measured by confidence alone,” said John Peluso, Chief Technology Officer, AvePoint. “It requires operational foundations: visibility into what AI systems are doing, enforceable governance over the data they consume and create, and the ability to audit and correct outcomes when something goes wrong. This is what distinguishes a trust layer from a trust score.”

AI Is Becoming a Major Source of Enterprise Data, and Most Organizations Aren't Ready for What That Means

The governance challenge is compounded by a structural shift in how enterprise data is being created.

On average, 35.5% of enterprise data is now generated by AI assistants—expected to reach 42.1% within 12 months
84.1% of organizations manage at least 1 petabyte of data, up from 79.2% last year
78.1% report that at least half of their data is more than five years old, up from 70.7% in 2025

These results, when combined with the continued rise in AI-generated data, demonstrate that when AI systems consume and act on AI-generated content—including redundant, outdated, or low-quality data—governance failures compound at scale.

Readiness, Not Models, Will Decide Who Wins With AI

Despite widespread breaches and deployment delays, organizations are making targeted investments to close the gap. The research shows clear directional investment:

Securing data used for AI training is the top-rated future investment priority (79.5%)
Third-party governance tools that monitor agent actions for policy alignment top the planned investment list for the next 12 months; these capabilities are at the core of an emerging category Gartner has defined as the AI Agent Management Platform (AMP)
95.5% of organizations have taken one or more actions to mitigate AI agent security concerns in the past 12 months
The percentage of organizations doing nothing to address security concerns has decreased from 8.3% in 2025 to 2.5% in 2026, a signal that inaction is no longer seen as an option

Critically, data security and privacy concerns are consistent across every form of enterprise AI–generative AI and AI agents alike—making the investment thesis durable regardless of how AI architectures evolve. As AI models grow more capable and autonomous, the governance gap does not shrink; it expands. Organizations that have not built enforceable data foundations or implemented comprehensive agent management platforms are not just behind: they are increasingly exposed.

The conclusion is consistent across three years of research: AI value is not constrained by model capability. It is constrained by whether organizations have built a trust layer: the data visibility, governance, and enforceable control required for AI outcomes to be trusted, audited, and corrected at scale.

To download a full copy of AvePoint’s third annual State of AI Report, visit: https://www.avepoint.com/shifthappens/reports/artificial-intelligence-report-2026

About the Research

The State of AI 2026: Scaling Trust, Control, and Readiness in the Agentic Era is the third annual report in AvePoint's research program on enterprise AI, conducted in partnership with Osterman Research. The study surveyed 750 respondents with direct responsibility for information management, data security, or AI programs. The full report is available at https://www.avepoint.com/shifthappens/reports/artificial-intelligence-report-2026.

About AvePoint

AvePoint is the global leader in data protection, unifying data security, governance, and resilience to provide a trusted foundation for AI. More than 28,000 customers rely on the AvePoint Confidence Platform to secure, govern, and rapidly recover data across Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and other cloud environments. With a single platform for lifecycle control, multicloud governance, and rapid recovery paired with clear ownership across the business, we prevent overexposure and sprawl, modernize legacy and fragmented data, and minimize data loss and interruption. Our global partner ecosystem includes approximately 6,000 MSPs, VARs, and SIs, and our solutions are available in over 100 cloud marketplaces. To learn more, visit www.avepoint.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws including statements regarding the future performance of and market opportunities for AvePoint. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believe,” “project,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,” “strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “plan,” “may,” “should,” “will,” “would,” “will be,” “will continue,” “will likely result,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: changes in the competitive and regulated industries in which AvePoint operates, variations in operating performance across competitors, changes in laws and regulations affecting AvePoint’s business and changes in AvePoint’s ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and ability to identify and realize additional opportunities, and the risk of downturns in the market and the technology industry. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the “Risk Factors” section of AvePoint’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K. Copies of this and other documents filed by AvePoint from time to time are available on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. This filing identifies and addresses other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and AvePoint does not assume any obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements after the date of this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. AvePoint does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations. Unless the context otherwise indicates, references in this press release to the terms “AvePoint,” “the Company,” “we,” “our” and “us” refer to AvePoint, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

Disclosure Information:

AvePoint uses the https://www.avepoint.com/ir website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

Investor Contact
AvePoint
Jamie Arestia
ir@avepoint.com
(551) 220-5654

Media Contact
AvePoint
Nicole Caci
pr@avepoint.com
(201) 201-8143

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.