Enterprises are accelerating AI agent deployments at an unprecedented pace, yet many struggle to quantify the value they deliver. A late-2025 survey of 59 executives by CB Insights revealed that 80% consider AI agent adoption a strategic priority. Strikingly, however, 40% admit they cannot track or are unaware of the actual return on investment (ROI), highlighting a critical gap as organizations move beyond pilots into full-scale production environments.
This mismatch between enthusiasm and measurement is fueling demand for specialized infrastructure.
As agents transition from experimental tools to core business assets, three emerging markets stand out for addressing the barriers to sustainable ROI: observability and evaluation, memory management, and AI cost management software.
These segments, characterized by low commercial maturity but high innovation momentum, are positioned for rapid expansion according to CB Insights‘ analysis of predictive signals and Mosaic scoring.
Observability and evaluation currently ranks as the most dynamic generative AI market tracked by the firm, leading in deal activity across dozens of categories.
With over 75 companies active—many still in early validation stages and a significant portion backed by Y Combinator—this space tackles “silent failures” where agents underperform without detection.
Major platforms from Salesforce, Microsoft, and Google offer basic monitoring, but enterprises require advanced, cross-system visibility.
Recent acquisitions, including Snyk’s purchase of Invariant Labs and Coralogix’s acquisition of Aporia, underscore how incumbents are embedding these capabilities.
Promising startups such as Braintrust (automating evaluations with rapid team growth), Vijil (reinforcement learning from errors), and Coval (scenario-based testing for conversational agents) are automating testing, hardening, and validation processes to ensure reliability before deployment.
Memory management addresses another core pain point: the lack of persistent context that causes generic agents to falter in complex, multi-step workflows.
This nascent market features 19 specialized vendors, with 84% founded since 2022 and over half backed by various investors.
Solutions enable intelligent compression of conversation histories, autonomous memory editing, and layered recall systems.
Key players like Mem0, Letta (serving clients such as Bilt Rewards), and Mastra are evolving beyond simple retrieval to create context-aware agents that reduce integration hurdles and expertise demands flagged in the survey.
Finally, AI cost management software bridges the visibility gap between technical spend and business outcomes.
Enterprises predominantly measure success through efficiency gains—productivity improvements (63%), cost reductions (58%), and time savings (58%)—while revenue impact registers with just 25% of organizations.
Tools from players like Pay-i (real-time attribution with AWS and Microsoft partnerships) and Revenium (cross-platform consolidation) map agent activity directly to KPIs, helping organizations navigate fragmented billing across models and providers.
Challenges persist, including data silos, talent shortages, and unpredictable inference costs, but these infrastructure layers are mitigating them.
By providing real-time performance insights, durable context, and outcome-linked economics, they are enabling enterprises to scale agents confidently.
CB Insights anticipates accelerated automation in testing, more autonomous memory systems, and sophisticated cost-to-value platforms.
As adoption matures, these foundational technologies will not only unlock clearer ROI but also determine which organizations lead in the agentic future. For executives, the message is seemingly quite clear: investing in measurement infrastructure today will separate successful deployments from costly experiments tomorrow.