Gartner predicts 70% of enterprises will abandon agentic AI built by vendor FDEs by 2028

Gartner predicts that by 2028, 70% of enterprises will abandon agentic AI systems built through vendor forward-deployed engineering, because costs climb and customers can't evolve the systems on their own. It also predicts that through 2028, fewer than 20% of FDE engagements will turn recurring customer needs into features in the vendor's core product.

Senior director analyst Mukul Saha said many providers now use the "forward deployed" label for implementation, professional services, solution engineering or AI consulting, and that some charge premium fees without the delivery depth to justify them. Gartner calls this "FDE washing" and advises defining scope, governance, IP ownership, knowledge transfer and an exit plan before an engagement starts, then embedding vendor engineers alongside internal experts so the customer can own the system afterwards.

For FDEs, the takeaway is that knowledge transfer and productizing field work are becoming part of how buyers judge the role. Engineers who can leave a customer team able to run what was built, and feed repeat patterns back into the product, are the ones this critique doesn't apply to.