Frontline workers drive AI adoption in global enterprises: Moveworks
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES — Frontline employees are now the primary drivers adopting advanced agentic artificial intelligence (AI) in major corporations, a new report finds.
Based on a survey of 200 IT executives at billion-dollar United States firms by Moveworks, this bottom-up movement is transforming organizational operations and challenging traditional technology implementation models.
“AI delivers operating leverage that compounds into enduring advantage — and signals a new era of AI that gets work done,” the report notes.
Employees lead grassroots AI initiatives
Ninety-one percent of surveyed IT executives confirmed that employees are driving the adoption of agentic AI within their billion-dollar companies.
This trend is widespread, with 78% of IT leaders reporting they have witnessed agentic AI initiatives led by non-leaders or support staff specifically aimed at solving problems they encounter daily.
This data underscores a new paradigm where technological transformation is increasingly employee-led and grassroots in nature. This bottom-up movement signifies a profound shift in how workplace technology is integrated and who leads that change.
The report states, “AI is no longer something forced upon employees; it is something being built and steered by them.”
As a means of reallocating the agency of digital transformation, agentic AI is providing employees with the resources to innovate and make their daily operations more efficient and effective.
The proposed solution will enable individuals most accustomed to specific tasks and problems to implement AI solutions more directly, making the technology more natural and closely aligned with operational requirements.
Transformative impact across corporations
Seventy-eight percent of IT leaders stated that the implementation of AI agents has completely or largely transformed their organizations.
This meltdown has seen a third of the leaders indicating a complete overhaul of organizational procedures, and 45% of the leaders reported significant changes in major aspects of their business.
This implies that the effect of the technology is extensive and all-encompassing, as it is not merely on the activities carried out in isolation but also on the redesign of basic operations.
Nonetheless, this technological change poses serious cultural and structural challenges that firms have yet to address. An interesting observation is that 73% of leaders in the IT sector believe their organizations are not sufficiently considering the large-scale artistic and structural transformations that will accompany the complete adoption of AI agents.
The transformation involves a shift in the definition of work, with one of the IT leaders envisioning a transition from manual execution to a scenario where employees are now interested in supervising systems and exercising judgment in complex situations.
“It’s not just a technological transformation happening, but a cultural one. The future of work won’t be created by those who bring in the most tools or apps. It will be built by those who eliminate friction and empower employees to work efficiently and easily,” said Bhavin Shah, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-founder of Moveworks.
The report therefore recommends that, to turn this frontline momentum into a permanent change, leaders need to purposefully empower, motivate, and direct their teams through this wave of change.
“The companies that will lead in this new agentic AI era are those who don’t just adopt new tools but those who embrace disruption, empower their workforce, and focus on work that flows,” the report notes.
