40% of Enterprise Apps Will Embed AI Agents by End of 2026, According to Gartner. Here's How to Profit.

Agentic AI applications can accomplish specific tasks with minimal human supervision. Yet only 5% of enterprise apps integrated AI agents in 2025, according to Gartner (NYSE: IT), suggesting that most companies were wary about replacing their human workers with bots.

However, Gartner expects that ratio to soar eightfold to 40% by the end of 2026 as more companies embrace the technology. In a "best-case" scenario, Gartner predicts agentic AI could drive 30% of all enterprise application software sales by 2035, up from just 2% in 2025.

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Gartner also warns that C-suite executives at software organizations only have a "three- to six-month window to define their agentic AI product strategy" or "risk falling behind their peers". To profit from that secular trend, investors should take a closer look at these two early movers in the agentic AI market: UiPath (NYSE: PATH) and ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW).

UiPath

UiPath is the world's largest robotic process automation (RPA) company. Its AI-powered software robots can be plugged into an organization's existing software to automate repetitive tasks such as data entry, customer onboarding, invoice processing, and mass email deliveries.

UiPath serves more than 10,000 customers across over 100 countries. Last year, it launched an enterprise-grade agentic automation platform to blend its RPA tools, AI agents, and human assistants into unified workflows. It provides natural-language-driven agents that can execute multi-step tasks across different interfaces, as well as tools for creating, testing, and managing its AI agents. It integrates OpenAI's ChatGPT into its enterprise workflows and integrates those services into Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Azure AI Foundry to reach more customers. Last December, UiPath's CEO, Daniel Dines, said that 950 of its customers were already developing AI agents to orchestrate over 365,000 processes across its unified Maestro platform.

From fiscal 2025 (which ended this January) to fiscal 2028, analysts expect UiPath's revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to grow at CAGRs of 10% and 22%, respectively, as its agentic AI business expands. With an enterprise value of $4 billion, it still looks like a bargain at 11 times this year's adjusted EBITDA.

ServiceNow

ServiceNow's cloud-based platform helps organizations streamline their unstructured work patterns into automated digital workflows. That approach allows its customers to expand more efficiently, reduce their operating costs, and support their hybrid and remote workers. It serves over 8,000 customers, including more than 85% of the Fortune 500 companies.

That platform is a natural foundation for rolling out more agentic AI services. Last year, it launched the ServiceNow AI Platform -- which includes a centralized "control tower" for orchestrating and governing agents and models, a workflow data fabric for context-aware decisions, and an AI engagement layer that lets thousands of AI agents coordinate their actions.

Like UiPath, ServiceNow provides custom and pre-built agents, while relying on human workers to coach, oversee, and refine the behavior of those agents. In its latest conference call, CEO Bill McDermott proclaimed that agentic AI "is not just a revolution; it's the only way to survive".

From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect ServiceNow's revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at CAGRs of 19% and 20%, respectively. With an enterprise value of $95 billion, it also looks cheap relative to its growth potential at 17 times this year's adjusted EBITDA.

UiPath and ServiceNow could be evergreen investments

UiPath and ServiceNow aren't immune to macro headwinds, which can drive many companies to rein in software spending. However, both help companies streamline operations, cut costs, and reduce their reliance on human employees. Those strengths could insulate them from protracted economic downturns -- which will drive more companies to adopt AI agents more aggressively -- and make them evergreen long-term investments.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft, ServiceNow, and UiPath. The Motley Fool recommends Gartner. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.