Agents market and funding momentum

Artificial intelligence agents are moving from chatbot demos to paid software that completes work inside companies, and investors are following that shift. (prnewswire.com) An agent is software that can plan steps, use tools, and carry out a task such as coding, customer support, or invoice handling instead of only generating text. OpenAI’s developer documentation says agents can call tools, collaborate across specialists, and keep state to finish multi-step work. (developers.openai.com) Valuates Reports said on April 9, 2026 that the global artificial intelligence agents market was worth $7.5 billion in 2024 and could reach $84.1 billion by 2031, implying 41% annual growth. The same report tied that forecast to enterprise demand for faster execution, lower manual workload, and measurable workflow outcomes. (prnewswire.com) Investors are also pouring more money into the broader artificial intelligence startup market. The National Venture Capital Association and PitchBook said artificial intelligence and machine learning deals captured 65.6% of all United States venture deal value in 2025, or $222 billion out of $339 billion. (nvca.org) PitchBook said this month that venture-backed companies in agentic artificial intelligence raised $24.2 billion across more than 1,300 deals, equal to 73% of all dollars invested in the category from 2015 through 2024. Its framing was blunt: buyers are being asked to purchase workflows, not software tools. (pitchbook.com) That sales pitch is showing up in product launches from large software vendors as well as startups. Salesforce says Agentforce is built to deploy “digital labor” across existing workflows and data, while Microsoft said in May 2025 that Copilot Studio was adding low-code tuning and multi-agent orchestration for company-specific processes. (salesforce.com, microsoft.com) The money is getting more specialized too. Wyser Capital said on February 25, 2026 that it had reached a first close of about Rs 48 crore, or $5.3 million, toward a Rs 120 crore maiden fund focused on enterprise and agentic artificial intelligence startups. (vccircle.com) Wyser said it plans to back proof-of-concept and early-revenue companies building intellectual-property-driven products in India for global enterprise markets, with initial checks of Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore. Co-founder Satyakam Mohanty said the firm had already begun warehousing early deals, but that the market had become noisy as interest in agentic artificial intelligence heated up. (vccircle.com) Adoption inside companies is still early enough that the market can change shape quickly. A March 2026 summary of McKinsey’s 2025 survey said 23% of organizations were scaling an agentic artificial intelligence system in at least one function, while no more than 10% of respondents reported scaling agents in any given business function. (forbes.com) That gap helps explain why capital is clustering around startups that automate a narrow job with a clear return, not around general-purpose chat alone. The next test is whether those workflow agents can keep winning contracts after pilot projects turn into procurement reviews and operating budgets. (pitchbook.com, nvca.org)