CDW Canada’s AI Workplace Trends Report Finds Canadian Organizations Entering New Phase of AI Maturity as Agentic AI Gains Ground
New CDW Canada research shows AI is now widely embedded at work, but trust and ROI measurement still lag growing usage and reported benefits.
New research shows AI is moving beyond experimentation in Canadian workplaces, but trust, training and measurement remain critical barriers to realizing business outcomes.
The report finds AI is now firmly embedded in Canadian workplaces, with daily use of workplace-approved AI tools nearly doubling year over year (31 percent, up from 18 percent). But as adoption becomes mainstream, organizations are increasingly focused on a more pressing challenge: turning AI investments into measurable business outcomes. The research also points to the rapid rise of agentic AI, with one third of employees already reporting the use of AI agents capable of completing multistep workflows, making recommendations and helping drive outcomes.
"AI adoption is no longer the story," said KJ Burke, Field CTO, Hybrid Infrastructure, CDW Canada. "Most organizations have moved beyond asking whether employees will use AI. The question now is whether those investments are creating meaningful business value. The organizations that lead in the years ahead will be the ones that can measure impact, build trust and reimagine how work gets done by empowering employees to work effectively with AI systems."
Agentic AI emerges as the next frontier
The next phase of workplace AI is already taking shape, signalling a shift from AI tools that assist with individual tasks to systems that can help execute more complex workflows and contribute to outcomes.
The research suggests organizations are beginning to move from simply consuming AI technologies to actively shaping them. Nearly one-in-three agentic AI users report their organization is already building AI agents in-house.
At the same time, the findings highlight the importance of employee enablement. Workers who receive hands-on AI training report significantly higher levels of confidence using AI (46 percent are very confident) than those who receive no formal support (23 percent), underscoring the growing need for practical, role-specific training as AI capabilities become more advanced.
"Agentic AI represents an important shift in how organizations think about AI," said KJ Burke, Field CTO, Hybrid Infrastructure, CDW Canada. "As AI evolves from assisting employees to helping execute work, organizations must invest not only in technology, but also in the skills, governance and trust required to use it responsibly and effectively."
Trust remains the biggest obstacle to deeper AI adoption
Employee attitudes toward AI continue to trend positively. Curiosity remains the dominant sentiment among workers (42 percent) and outweighs the percentage that are worried about AI, suggesting employees are increasingly open to AI in the workplace.
However, trust continues to be a barrier to broader and deeper adoption. Accuracy and reliability are among the top AI concerns across daily users (31 percent), less frequent users (24 percent) and those not yet using approved tools (43 percent).
The findings also show that barriers vary depending on an employee's experience with AI. More advanced users tend to focus on privacy and security concerns, while those who have yet to embrace AI are more likely to question both its reliability and its relevance to their role.
"The challenge for organizations is no longer generating interest in AI," said Ashley Otto, Senior Product Manager, CDW Canada. "It's helping employees trust the technology enough to use it confidently and effectively. That requires clear governance, practical use cases and ongoing education."
Organizations are beginning to see value, but many still struggle to measure it
The research suggests AI is delivering benefits beyond simple efficiency gains. Compared to 2025, employees with access to AI at work increasingly report improvements in productivity (58 percent, up 11 points), quality of outputs (54 percent, up 15 points) and innovation (48 percent, up 11 points), indicating that organizations are beginning to realize broader business value from AI investments.
Despite this progress, many organizations continue to face a measurement gap. While more organizations report tracking specific KPIs to evaluate AI performance than they did a year ago (38 percent, up from 24 percent), a significant number still lack formal frameworks to assess ROI (23 percent) or are unsure whether such measurement exists (23 percent).
As AI programs mature and investment scrutiny intensifies, the ability to measure and communicate impact is critical to ensuring effective adoption. For CDW Canada, that means helping organizations move beyond AI implementation to building sustainable programs grounded in strategy, employee enablement, governance and measurable business outcomes.
"Most organizations can tell you how many employees have access to AI," said Burke. "Far fewer can clearly demonstrate what AI has changed for their business. We're entering an accountability phase where success will be defined not by access or experimentation, but by an organization's ability to prove value and sustain results."
For Canadian organizations, the next phase of AI success will be defined by trust, workforce readiness and measurable outcomes. As organizations explore emerging technologies such as agentic AI, CDW Canada is helping customers build the strategies, skills and governance frameworks needed to turn AI investments into lasting business value.
To learn more about the state of AI in Canadian workplaces, download the full 2026 Canadian AI Workspace Trends Report: Canada’s AI Workplace Evolution from Adoption to Accountability.
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About the Survey
This study was conducted by
The online survey was in field from June 15 to 25, 2026, with a sample of 1,011 Canadian office workers who work in organizations with at least 20 employees and use a computer in an office setting 11 or more hours a week, using Leger’s LEO panel. Quotas were set for business size, sector, region, age and gender to align with sample structure from previous waves, and data is unweighted.
The survey was conducted in English. Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error.
About CDW Canada
CDW Canada Corp. is the strategic end-to-end technology partner that cuts through complexity to turn customer ambition into outcomes. Working with organizations across the business, government, education and healthcare sectors, CDW enables organizations to navigate an increasingly complex technology market and turn their technology investments into lasting value. CDW Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary of CDW Corporation (Nasdaq: CDW), a global organization. For more information, visit CDW.ca.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260922478983/en/
For further information, please contact:
Julie Clivio
VP, Growth & Operations, CDW Canada
647.288.5828 | julie.clivio@cdw.ca
Source: CDW Canada