Artificial intelligence (AI) as a mere digital assistant may be coming to an end.
According to the State of AI for Networking 2026 report by Extreme Networks, a seismic shift in corporate trust is underway. Some 57% of IT leaders expect to remove humans from the decision-making loop within the next year, handing the reins to autonomous agentic AI.
The survey of 200 senior technology executives including chief information officers (CIOs) and chief information security officers (CISOs) suggests that the tipping point for autonomous IT operations has arrived. While 60% of organizations currently maintain a human-in-the-loop model for safety, that caution is evaporating in the face of unprecedented efficiency gains.
Perhaps the most telling sign of this evolution is how these agents are being integrated into the corporate hierarchy. Nearly 80% of organizations now treat AI agents as users, granting them unique identities and subjecting them to the same governance and security controls as human employees.
“AI’s impact in IT is shifting from speculative cost savings to measurable productivity gains,” the report concluded. No longer content with simple chatbots, 79% of leaders have already deployed AI agents to handle high-stakes tasks such as performance optimization, security automation, and complex troubleshooting.
The primary driver behind this aggressive adoption is the speed of financial return. In 2024, only 16% of leaders expected a measurable impact from AI within weeks. In 2026, that number plummeted to a matter of days, even hours.
What is more, 90% of organizations report a positive ROI from AI in networking, while 63% realized that value within a single quarter, and 9% of executives (and 14% of CISOs) now expect to see ROI within hours of deployment.
The figures represent a radical departure from traditional technology cycles, where enterprise software often took years to pay for itself.
While early AI adoption was plagued by fears of hallucinations and data leaks, the 2026 landscape looks remarkably different. Security is now viewed as a primary benefit rather than a barrier. An overwhelming 93% of executives expressed confidence that AI-powered networking reduces organizational risk, with 66% citing improved security posture as a top success metric.
Despite the optimism, the transition isn’t without friction. The 10% of leaders who remain skeptical point to a black box lack of transparency and a fear of ceding control without human intuition. However, with only 5% of respondents believing it will take more than two years to achieve full autonomy, the momentum toward self-driving IT infrastructure appears irreversible.
As organizations move from pilot programs to scalable architectures, the focus has shifted from if AI can do the job to how fast it can be trusted to run the show alone. For the modern CIO, the goal is clear: build the governance today to allow the machines to lead tomorrow.
