Breakfast Business with Joe Lynam
Irish organisations not grasping the transformative powers of AI agents
12 Nov 2025
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. Welcome back to Breakfast Business with me, Tom McAnally, standing in for Joel Lynham.
Chapter 2: What are the transformative powers of AI agents for Irish organisations?
Now, Irish organisations see the opportunities from AI agents but are not yet grasping their transformative powers. That's according to a new survey published just this morning from PwC Ireland. Joining me now to discuss the results of the survey is David Lee, who's Chief Technology Officer with PwC Ireland. Good morning, David. Good morning, Tom. Thank you for having me on. You're very welcome.
Good to have you on. Now, David, before we start talking about the results of the survey, let's just be clear. You're talking about AI agents.
Chapter 3: What insights does the PwC survey provide about AI investment in Ireland?
You're not just talking about business going into chat GBT and saying, how do I get better sales or where should I be exporting my products to? AI agents are different. What are they? What exactly are we talking about? Exactly, Tom.
They are different. So let me maybe explain by way of an example.
Chapter 4: How do AI agents differ from traditional AI applications?
So if I typify our use of AI to date, it has generally been sort of intelligent information retrieval. So let's put it in a festive setting. People at the moment are probably thinking about how many holidays have I got left this year? So currently, in terms of intelligent AI, people would say, how many holidays have I left? It tells you, Tom, you have 10 days left.
Tom then goes into his HR system, books his leave. Tom separately goes into his calendar and books his out of office. An agent has the power to do all those activities together for you. So I can say to the agent, I want to go on holidays for two weeks between the dates of A and Y, book that in the system and put me as out of office.
OK, so it's basically an AI-powered personal assistant that works within businesses.
It's an AI-powered solution that allows you to complete workflow activities as opposed to individual information retrieval.
I got you. I got you. And what did your survey find? Can you start with 75% or 70% of Irish firms said they were looking at increasing their AI budgets?
Yeah, so that was very consistent with what we're seeing across other territories. So on a look forward, Irish organisations are committed to spending more in AI investment over the coming year.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do Irish businesses face in AI implementation?
And presumably, as a technology officer, you'd be saying that that should be 100%. 70% I'd settle for.
I think the more interesting discussion is where people are going to spend that on. And the experience of the survey would suggest that still Irish organisations are looking at AI as a tool of efficiency, as opposed to a tool which can help them grow their business.
OK, so seven out of 10 are looking at increasing the budget. But the actual rate of implementation of AI solutions across businesses is still pretty low in Ireland.
The overall scale adoption of those solutions is still relatively low by international standards. that probably reflects that Irish organisations are taking a more considered and cautious approach to the investments that they're making.
I have to say, this surprises me, David, because I've been hearing just in the last couple of weeks that we are to the forefront of AI adoption in a business sense, in a business context, internationally.
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Chapter 6: What advice should business leaders consider when investing in AI?
Did it surprise you?
Yeah, it's actually very consistent with what we're seeing with our own clients and indeed our own experience in terms of its deployment. Irish organisations have worked hard to build relationships of trust with their employees, with their customers and with their regulatory authorities. So they're very slow to take activities which may jeopardise those relationships.
So I would categorise what Irish organisations are doing is a very considered approach to the evaluation of a new technology.
OK, so if you were advising business owners listening now or key business decision makers listening now who want to invest in AI but haven't decided how or where, because it's changing so much, you might make a decision now to invest. And in a month's time, your thinking might be obsolete. What advice would you give them?
Yeah, so I think that the pace of evolution of the technology is at a level we've never seen before. But what we're experiencing is the organisational learning from the use of the technology persists even when the technology changes.
If I was starting from an organisation at this point of view, I'd say approach with a broader mindset than looking at it just as a means of taking costs out of your organisation. It was interesting to see some of the comparator numbers between Ireland and the US. In the Irish examples, less than 10% of organisations were saying they were using it as a means of generating additional revenue.
Whereas you look to our US colleagues, the number is closer to 30%. That's a big difference. It's a big difference.
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Chapter 7: How can AI drive both efficiency and revenue growth in organisations?
And they're not just investing it. It's not just US people are spending money. They're actually getting money back. They're getting a return from their AI investment.
Exactly. And that's where I think in terms of if you're purely looking at it as a tool of efficiency, you're only looking at half the equation. The ability to bring new service offerings to the market, the ability to bring solutions and offerings that are more tailored to the needs of individual customers can all be enabled by AI.
So it's two sides of the equation that you end up generating additional revenue and obviously operating your business in a more efficient manner.
So your core piece of advice is don't just look at one side of the balance sheet. If you're using AI, look at both. Look at both sides. OK. David Lee, Chief Technology Officer with PwC Ireland. Thanks for joining us this morning. Thanks for bringing us the results of that survey.