Gartner: here's how AI will remake business in the next three years

Cost exhaustion attacks, disposable applications, and evidence custodians – these are the ideas businesses need to prepare for within the next three years or less.

That's according to analyst house Gartner, which laid out a list of ten predictions for 2027 to 2030, many of which are focused on AI and its potential business impacts.

That includes physical AI or robots, agent swarms clogging up public services or running down budgets, and unpicking how to actually manage AI costs, providers, and risks.

"Many of the systems we take for granted today, from public services to software, energy and workforce models, will be fundamentally transformed by AI over the next decade," said Daryl Plummer, distinguished VP analyst and Gartner fellow.

"The most successful organizations will be those that balance innovation with responsibility, building the capabilities needed to manage both the opportunities and the unintended consequences of an AI-driven world," Plummer added.

AI risks on the horizon

The analyst firm predicted that more than ten billion autonomous agents will be clogging up public services by 2030. Those agents will have been made by people, companies, and even governments in order to take on basic tasks for users. But that will lead to a sharp increase in the number of applications and other transactions, putting pressure on the government to keep up.

To prepare, Gartner called on governments to modernise their digital infrastructure and strengthen verification, though they'll only have a few years to do so.

Alongside that, organisations will face a new type of cybersecurity risk: cost exhaustion attacks. These are like a denial of service attack, but focused on driving up the cost of AI used by the company.

"The rise of public-facing AI is creating a new cybersecurity risk called cost exhaustion attacks, where malicious actors deliberately drive excessive AI usage to increase operational costs," Gartner said in a statement.

To avoid this, companies should consider AI usage patterns and token consumption as security concerns, ensuring both are monitored, saying eight in ten companies will face these attacks within the next few years.

AI business

Gartner also predicts that by 2030, 80% of front-line employees working for global companies will be working alongside or with physical AI, such as robots, drones, autonomous vehicles, or "other embodied systems that sense, interact with, and influence their surroundings."

By 2029, most applications will become disposable – on purpose. These disposable apps will be used for less than one year, with employees using AI app development in order to meet short-term needs, ditching the tool when it's no longer needed. Gartner warned that will spark governance and security challenges.

Beyond AI-generated apps, Gartner also forecasts the rise of AI-powered products, which will allow companies to introduce "customised, efficient and scalable offerings," leaving behind those who haven't gotten to grips with the tech. Gartner also predicted more firms will find themselves generating power, selling it back to grids or to AI data centres.

Watching AI – and its cost

To help manage the rise of AI, companies will create a new role or corporate function dedicated to managing AI costs and mapping it to value or profit, with 60% of the largest companies embedding financial operations controls at inference, leading to real-time optimisation and cost governance. CIOs, meanwhile, will become the "evidence custodian" for AI accountability in businesses, ensuring guardrails are in place.

Alongside that, Gartner predicted that insurers will drive AI governance in organizations, rather than regulators, with policy-based AI built into systems and workflows to address the growing concerns around risks and liabilities associated with the technology.

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