Why Gartner Is Right About 'AI Debt' and Why ‘Real-Time Agentic Automation’ Helps Organisations Repay It Faster
- juliecumberland
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
December 2025
The recent Gartner feature on AI debt offers one of the clearest explanations yet of a challenge every modern organisation now faces. AI debt isn’t a failure and it isn’t a warning to slow down, it's the natural consequence of innovation running ahead of the systems, processes and governance frameworks that support it.
In truth, we have lived with versions of this for decades; in data quality, in systems integration, in overlapping platforms that were never designed to work together. AI simply makes the gap more visible, and in some cases, more urgent.
As a COO, I welcome Gartner’s message, because it gives leaders the language to talk about something that has long been felt but rarely articulated. I also believe the picture is more optimistic than it first appears; with the right operational scaffolding, AI debt becomes manageable. Because with the right automation approach, especially 'real-time agentic automation', much of this debt can be re-paid faster than organisations expect.
Let’s take this point by point:
1. AI Debt Is Inevitable but It Doesn’t Have to Be Dangerous
Gartner is right: if you are building AI capabilities, you will accumulate debt. AI evolves faster than the structures beneath it. That gap is unavoidable.
What matters is how that gap is managed. Where organisations get into trouble is not the existence of debt, but the absence of transparency. When no one can see the fragmentation, the workarounds, the duplicated logic or the brittle handoffs between systems, debt grows silently.
Eventually it becomes a barrier to progress; slowing down operations, increasing risk and limiting the ability to scale new automation. Real-time agentic automation forces a healthier discipline. It requires:
Clean, reliable data
Clear orchestration across systems
Transparent decisions that can be traced
Rules and processes that can be changed safely
A governance framework that keeps innovation aligned with operational reality
This is not the glamour end of AI but it is the part that determines whether automation becomes a genuine asset or an expensive burden.
2. Debt Compounds With Each Innovation Cycle…Unless You Stabilise the Foundation
Gartner notes that every new model, platform or use case introduces fresh dependencies and fresh strain. Left unmanaged, debt compounds. This is exactly what we see in organisations that launch multiple isolated automations: the estate becomes a patchwork of bespoke journeys, point integrations and business logic scattered across systems. It works until it doesn’t.
TrustPortal’s approach to agentic automation solves this head-on. We provide one unified real-time orchestration layer, giving organisations:
Reuse of patterns
Consistency in data and rules
Simplified change processes
Greater transparency for risk and compliance
A single view of the end-to-end journey
Debt still exists but it stops spreading. And critically, it stops compounding. That's not to say that TrustPortal recommend estate-wide orchestration all at once; in fact one pain point or business process at a time is perfectly possible and can provide a good evidence base for ROI.
3. AI Debt Is Interconnected: So the Response Must Be Too
Gartner highlights that AI debt rarely exists in isolation. Weaknesses in one area ripple across the organisation.
In operational terms, this means:
A data-quality issue becomes a customer-experience issue
A rules inconsistency becomes an agent-behaviour issue
A poor integration becomes a cost-to-serve issue
Agentic automation exposes these connections more quickly but it also helps resolve them more quickly. When you have a real-time layer coordinating processes across systems, the knock-on effects become easier to diagnose and fix.
4. What AI Debt Looks Like on the Balance Sheet
Although AI debt is not formally recognised in accounting standards, organisations feel it in ways that any CFO or COO would recognise.
Here is how AI debt appears in financial terms:
Operational inefficiency = increased cost-to-serve
Rework and error correction = higher labour cost, slower throughput
Inconsistent processes = greater compliance risk, higher audit cost
Slow change cycles = higher IT spend, delayed time-to-value
Poor customer experience = churn, complaints, reputational drag
Under-utilised automation = sunk cost with no return
Now the more important part: How do we show the repayment of AI debt on the balance sheet?
This is where TrustPortal’s agentic automation demonstrates rapid ROI:
Complaint reduction
Fewer escalations
Faster resolution
Improved regulatory outcomes
Customer engagement uplift
Higher first-contact resolution
Shorter handling times
Improved NPS and CSAT
Advisor productivity gains
Fewer system hops
Less after-call work
Higher throughput per FTE
Operational cost savings
Reduced errors
Fewer manual interventions
Lower dependency on scarce technical resources
Time-to-value acceleration
Reusable patterns
Faster rollout of new journeys
Lower marginal cost for each additional automation
These are balance-sheet friendly outcomes; measurable, repeatable, and visible in quarterly reporting. They turn a conceptual conversation about debt into a tangible conversation about financial performance.
5. The Upside: How Agentic Automation Turns AI Debt Into Strategic Liquidity
Gartner makes an important point that ‘Debt’ is not inherently bad. What matters is where it sits, and whether it can be repaid.
Real-time agentic automation creates strategic liquidity, because it:
Frees up advisor time
Removes rework
Simplifies operations
Improves data quality in motion
Makes change faster and safer
Reduces the overhead of fragmented systems
In other words: it turns operational friction into momentum. As every COO knows, organisational agility is worth more than any single technology investment. It influences competitiveness, customer experience, staff morale, cost structure and strategic freedom.
6. A Final Thought: AI Debt Shouldn’t Frighten Us; It Should Focus Us
Gartner’s article ends with a powerful call to action: Don’t fear AI debt. Understand it. Manage it. Use it as a lever.
At TrustPortal, in operations, we see the same truth every day. Debt is not the enemy. Lack of visibility is. Disconnected processes are; unexamined assumptions are.
Real-time agentic automation brings structure, clarity and rhythm to the organisation. It allows AI to be deployed with confidence, not caution. And it turns operational complexity into a source of advantage rather than anxiety.
If AI debt is the price of progress, then the right automation approach is how organisations repay that debt; quickly, safely and with meaningful returns.
And that is why we believe the era of real-time agentic automation is not a risk to be managed, but an opportunity to be seized.
Michelle Sims
COO
TrustPortal
Credit: Gartner 2025: