80% Will Fail. Here's Why. (And How to Be in the 20% That Doesn't)

Reflect w/ Ed Fassio — where AI tells the stories that matter. Gartner says 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by 2027. Industry analysts say the real failure rate is closer to 80%. Not because the models are bad. GPT-5.6 is remarkable. The models work. The failure isn't in the technology. It's in the deployment. VentureBeat found that across 101 enterprises, most companies are calling chatbots agents when they're not. They're buying the label without building the capability. McKinsey says security and risk concerns are the top barrier to scaling. OpenAI just published a five-step framework for managing agentic AI spend. But the gap between deploying an agent and having an agent that works is where most projects die. Your Move: Audit your current AI projects against the failure patterns. If you can't answer what does done look like for each one, you're already in the 80%. — Reflect w/ Ed Fassio | reflectpodcast.com