What are real examples of agentic AI? (And which got reversed)

What separates an example from a demo

Most lists of agentic AI examples mix launched products with sales demos. A deployment worth copying has three things a demo does not: a task that repeats on a schedule, a number that existed before the agent arrived, and a named owner who answers for the output when the agent gets it wrong. Apply that filter and the list gets short.

The ones with public numbers

Klarna's customer service assistant handled 2.3 million chats in its first month, matched the output of roughly 700 full-time agents, and cut average resolution from 11 minutes to under 2. Wells Fargo runs an agent that queries about 250,000 vendor agreement documents for clauses and payment terms, plus agents that triage foreign exchange post-trade inquiries and handle balance and debit card requests. Each one absorbed a lookup or a triage step inside a job.

Why the working examples look small

A December 2025 study of 306 practitioners running agents in production found 68% of deployed agents take at most 10 steps before a person intervenes, and 47% take fewer than 5. MIT Media Lab's 2025 GenAI Divide report put 95% of corporate pilots at no measurable profit impact. Klarna itself began rehiring human agents in May 2025, with its CEO saying cost had become too dominant a factor and quality dropped.

The examples worth copying are the dull ones: one repeating task, a baseline already measured, and a person reachable behind the agent. Budget against a 5-step agent that removes 8 minutes from a lookup, and treat any 700-headcount headline as a story with a second half.