Banking, Healthcare and Retail Leaders Move AI Agents into Production, Epignosis Insights Report Finds
A new report from Epignosis Insights, Enterprise AI Agents Market Outlook: Adoption Trends Across Industries, shows how AI adoption differs across industries and where companies have publicly reported AI agents in production. The report combines official statistics from Eurostat and the U.S. Census Bureau with company announcements and earnings disclosures.
Sector adoption rates
According to Eurostat, 62.5% of EU enterprises in information and communication and 40.4% of those in professional, scientific and technical services used AI in 2025. Every other sector was below 25%. In the United States, the Census Bureau reported AI use of 39.7% in the Information sector and 33.9% in Finance and Insurance for the period ending 3 May 2026, compared with 19.8% across all businesses. Retail trade was about 14%, with about 17% of retailers expecting to use AI within six months.
Company size also shapes adoption across industries. In 2025, 55.0% of large EU enterprises used AI, compared with 30.4% of medium-sized and 17.0% of small enterprises. In the U.S., 37% of firms with 250 or more employees reported AI use in May 2026.
The purpose of AI use also differs by sector. Eurostat reports that enterprises in accommodation (58.8%) and retail trade (48.2%) mainly used AI for marketing or sales, the information and communication sector mainly used it for research and development or innovation (42.5%), and the electricity, gas, steam and water supply sector mainly used it for ICT security (32.0%).
Industry highlights from the report.
Banking and financial services. JPMorgan Chase said in June 2026 that it would deploy AI agents able to work for hours without human intervention. The bank reported that AI tools in private banking had contributed to a 20% increase in gross sales, and said such tools could eventually allow bankers to expand client coverage by as much as 50%. Its executives have said the bank will offer retraining and redeployment for staff whose roles change.
Healthcare. Epic Systems reported at HIMSS 2026 that more than 85% of its customers use Epic AI. Published customer results include a 42% cut in medication prior-authorization submission time at Summit Health, a sustained 58% reduction in billing-related patient messages at Rush University Medical Center, and more than 14,900 patient-rescheduled appointments at Ochsner Health, saving almost 750 hours of staff time. These are vendor-reported results.
Retail and e-commerce. Walmart has organized its AI approach around four super agents for customers, store associates, suppliers, and developers. The company said weekly active users of its Sparky shopping agent rose more than 100% in a quarter. In January 2026, Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol, co-developed with retailers including Shopify, Etsy, Walmart and Wayfair.
Manufacturing. Eurostat reports that EU manufacturers use AI mainly for marketing and sales (30.4%) and business administration (27.1%). Siemens announced nine industrial copilots at CES 2026 and reported that PepsiCo achieved a 20% throughput increase on initial deployment of its digital-twin and AI-agent tools.
Information technology. Microsoft reported that GitHub Copilot had 50 million users and that its Foundry platform for building AI applications and agents had reached 100,000 customers.
Public sector. NHS England was the largest named deployment in Microsoft's fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 results, with 505,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot seats.
Use inside companies
Across industries, the U.S. Census Bureau's 2026 AI supplement found that 57% of AI-using firms apply AI in three or fewer business functions. Sales and marketing (52%), strategy and business development (45%), and IT (41%) were the most common. Two-thirds of users (66%) use AI only to augment tasks, and 2% of firms reported AI-related employment decreases.
About the report
Enterprise AI Agents Market Outlook: Adoption Trends Across Industries is based on official statistics, company filings and earnings disclosures, standards bodies, regulatory sources and news reporting. It does not use paid market-research reports and does not include a market-value forecast. The report includes eight charts and a frequently asked questions section.