Lori Schafer is CEO of Digital Wave Technology, an AI-native platform delivering AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI on governed master data.getty​A new reality is emerging in enterprise technology: Generating insights is becoming easier, but coordinating action remains difficult.​Enterprise companies have long invested in business intelligence dashboards, advanced analytics and machine learning models that turn data into insights. The challenge lies in everything that happens between insight and action. That's where agentic AI holds so much promise: It can help organizations accelerate the path from insight to action.Of course, it's not as simple as adding an agentic AI capability to the technology stack. Governance, training, unified data and cross-functional visibility into operations all play a role. Organizations also need the right processes and decision frameworks to move from insight to action more quickly.​Examining The Bottleneck Between Insight And ActionA KPMG survey of digital transformation leaders found that only a quarter of respondents felt AI contributed positively to them achieving growth objectives, and only 12% said they could move from concept to execution in three months with AI. The majority needed six months or more.Similarly, a survey of IT leaders from IDC and SAP found that fewer than 16% report achieving meaningful AI-driven business outcomes at the enterprise level. Clearly, even among companies that have implemented AI, there's still a gap between generating insights and acting on them effectively.Consider a midsize grocery retailer that mines its analytics platform to learn that a regional promotion is underperforming, and inventory is building up in three distribution centers. The insight can take minutes to surface, even faster with AI tools. From the organizations I've observed, even with the answer in hand, coordinating the response can take days. A category manager has to confirm the finding, loop in supply chain teams to check replenishment schedules, coordinate with pricing teams to model a markdown, get sign-off from finance and notify store operations. This process introduces a string of emails, meetings and messages, each with a handoff that risks miscommunication.​AI agents, working with category managers, can speed up the process. With agentic AI, category managers work from a dashboard where they monitor and direct agents to resolve several operational steps. Agentic AI can assess inventory, coordinate routine tasks and alert stakeholders—simultaneously—to immediate action items. It’s not AI agents replacing decision-makers, but fueling faster insights into action.​​​Turning Insight Into ActionImplementing agentic AI doesn't require organizations to rip and replace their existing technology environment. This is often an assumption, but it’s more about using existing components to help build a bridge and coordinating work across the company. Enterprise technology can be thought of in four layers:1. Data Layer: Trusted enterprise data (MDM, PIM, etc.).2. Application Layer: ERP, CRM, WMS, planning, etc.3. Workflow Layer: Business processes and approvals.4. Agentic Orchestration Layer: AI agents that coordinate work across the first three.​For many integrating agentic AI, what's missing is the orchestration layer, a seam focused on execution rather than analysis. Data, applications and workflows have been in place, accelerating how companies diagnose problems and uncover insights. Taking swift action has been the hard part.​Again, consider the category manager at a midsize grocer. An orchestration layer, sitting on top of existing systems, monitors signals and works across departments. A product assortment change doesn’t happen in a silo; instead, agentic orchestration makes the decision in concert with supply chain so inventory levels are adjusted and down the line.As CEO of a company directly working to advance this orchestration layer, I've found the true challenge today is getting organizations to embrace agentic AI companywide. Change management is never easy, so a lot of training needs to happen to get each department comfortable with agentic tools and growing alongside them.Preparing The BusinessPutting the technology in place is only half the equation. Just as essential is ensuring that the agentic capability is trustworthy enough to advance workflows without constant human intervention. That starts with the same governed data foundation that makes any AI investment reliable in the first place.Employees working alongside agentic AI must learn how to supervise these systems so insights become action quickly and safely. Success will increasingly depend on setting appropriate boundaries for AI agents while monitoring outcomes and refining decisions over time.The path forward can begin small and build momentum:• Audit one high-friction workflow. Pick a single process, like a markdown decision or a replenishment escalation, and map every handoff and notification required. This single exercise usually reveals more bottlenecks than any strategy deck.• Define what “safe to automate” looks like. Not every decision belongs to an agent. Leaders should specify which steps AI can coordinate autonomously, including routing, notifying and scheduling, and which require a human sign-off, particularly where financial exposure or customer experience is on the line.• Assign clear ownership before scaling. As routine coordination shifts to AI agents, someone still needs to own the outcome. Naming decision owners and escalation paths up front prevents the very ambiguity that agentic AI is meant to eliminate.• Measure time-to-action, not just time-to-insight. Most organizations already track how fast they can surface an insight. Few track how long it takes to act on one. Adding that second metric gives leadership a clear, honest view of where the real bottleneck lives.There’s work to be done, but companies that invest in preparing their teams to use agentic AI will go from insight to action faster and smoother. The in-between won’t look like a bottleneck but a system of teams working with AI agents that get businesses responding to changes and insights in real time.Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?