- Adobe Releases Digital and AI Trends Report
- Survey of 3,000 executives and 4,000 consumers reveals attitudes toward agent AI
- Consumers want the human touch, but are companies even ready?
Adobe has launched its Digital and AI Trends Report 2026surveyed 3,000 executives and 4,000 consumers to reveal both business and consumer attitudes toward agent AI, business readiness, and overall experience and expectations.
The report has some interesting findings: For one, less than half of consumers (43%) said they would interact with a brand’s AI agent when offered the opportunity. However, 46% said they had no problem if a brand used AI, with one big caveat that companies should seriously consider: they don’t mind using agent AI. as long as your needs are met.
I would expect these numbers to grow, to some extent. Because even now a clear trend is developing.
Report findings
Elsewhere, according to the Adobe report, 37% said they would shorten engagements with a brand if they expected human contact and got an AI, and 70% believe those AI interactions should feel human. So people don’t want robots: they crave the human touch.
But what really caught my attention is the huge disconnect between how consumers and businesses measure AI success.
As you would expect from companies, the main measures of success are cost metrics and efficiency gains.
That’s simply not what consumers are interested in. According to Adobe, users judge AI experiences based on “trust, transparency, and whether their needs are met.”
To me, this seems like some brands are risking putting the cart before the horse. Without reaching users where they are and meeting their expectations, all the efficiencies and savings in the world won’t stop consumers from finding a company that can meet their demands.
However, to achieve this, companies will have to overcome widespread difficulties in properly scaling their AI.
The report highlights how readiness to implement enterprise AI faces extreme pressures, with the biggest barriers to scaling being data integration and quality (75%). Less than half of the executives surveyed (43%) believe that the quality and accessibility of their data is adequate enough for the use of AI. And without them, any AI is doomed to failure.
That may well explain why so few of those companies have launched agent AI across the organization for customer service (just 16%) and discovery and search purposes (a minuscule 13%).
But it’s not all bad news for brands.
Far from agentic AI, the vast majority of respondents (76%) said that generative AI (think Firefly or Google’s Nano Banana) has improved the volume and speed of content ideation and production. Meanwhile, 70% said they have helped non-creative teams produce content.
Commenting on the findings, Rachel Thornton, CMO of Adobe Enterprise, said: “Many organizations are still stuck in that complicated middle ground between expectations and execution. As customer expectations change, brands must evolve to orchestrate AI-powered agent experiences that can act and respond at every touchpoint. […] to deliver meaningful experiences on a global scale.”
