In this article, we will explore the 7 Worst Performing Agentic AI Stocks So Far in 2026.
Agentic AI’s performance so far in 2026 looks mixed rather than clearly strong or clearly weak. On the positive side, enterprise adoption appears to be moving beyond pilots. Deloitte said worker access to AI rose 50% in 2025, the share of companies with at least 40% of projects in production is expected to double within six months, and firms are already deploying autonomous agents in customer service, product development, and workflow management. Gartner also forecasts worldwide AI spending will reach $2.52 trillion in 2026, up 44% year over year, which suggests the broader investment backdrop remains supportive.
Still, the operating picture is not especially clean. McKinsey’s 2026 AI Trust Maturity Survey, based on about 500 organizations, found that only about one-third had reached a higher level of maturity in strategy, governance, and agentic AI controls. Nearly two-thirds cited security and risk concerns as the top barrier to fully scaling agentic AI, while 74% flagged inaccuracy and 72% cited cybersecurity as major risks. The International AI Safety Report 2026 added that current general-purpose AI systems still show uneven performance across tasks and remain prone to basic factual and logical errors.
So, as of early April 2026, agentic AI seems to be advancing in deployment and spending, but its real-world performance is still constrained by governance, reliability, and security issues rather than demand alone.
Methodology
We used screeners to identify pure-play and pure-play-adjacent agentic AI stocks and then picked stocks with the worst YTD returns. We limited our final selection to companies that have recently reported noteworthy developments likely to impact investor sentiment. These stocks are also popular among analysts and elite hedge funds.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 498.7% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 303 percentage points (see more details here).
7. Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERI)
Veritone Inc. (NASDAQ:VERI) is one of the worst-performing agentic AI stocks so far in 2026. The stock is down 61% as of April 2.
On March 26, Veritone said it signed a multi-year agreement with Oracle under which it will migrate its AI solutions to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI, as a preferred cloud and infrastructure provider. The company said the move is meant to improve the scalability, security, and performance of key offerings including its aiWARE platform, Veritone Data Refinery, and Veritone Data Marketplace.
Veritone said the partnership is intended to support expansion across three areas: commercial markets such as media, sports, entertainment, and news; public-sector workloads; and what it described as the AI data economy. In media, the company said OCI’s networking and storage capabilities should help support Digital Media Hub and content licensing services. In the public sector, Veritone plans to deploy its intelligent digital evidence management system in OCI environments designed for government requirements, including CJIS and FedRAMP-authorized environments.
The company also said Veritone Data Refinery will use OCI to transform raw unstructured data into training datasets more efficiently, while Veritone Data Marketplace is expected to expand the supply of premium data available to AI developers. As of April 3, Veritone shares were trading at $1.83 and were down 63.44% year to date, underscoring how badly the stock has lagged despite the new Oracle tie-up.
Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERI) provides enterprise AI software and solutions that help organizations process unstructured data such as video, audio, and images through its aiWARE operating system.
6. XBP Global Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:XBP)
XBP Global Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:XBP) is one of the worst-performing agentic AI stocks so far in 2026.
As of April 2, 2026, XBP shares closed at $3.63, down 50.0% from their January 2, 2026 close of $7.26.
XBP Global’s March 30 results did little to hide the strain underneath the “transition year” framing. For full-year 2025, reported revenue fell 9.4% year over year to $791.0 million, while combined pro forma revenue declined 13.6% to $879.6 million. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA also dropped 13.1% to $90.7 million. In the fourth quarter, revenue came in at $207.0 million, down 15.1% year over year on a pro forma basis, while pro forma adjusted EBITDA fell 33.0% to $19.8 million. Segment data showed further pressure in the core Applied Workflow Automation business, where full-year revenue declined 11.4% and gross margin slipped 60 basis points to 17.9%.
There were some offsets. Gross margin improved modestly at the consolidated level, new contract value rose, and year-end cash and cash equivalents stood at $37.1 million, with cash, restricted cash, and cash equivalents totaling $68.7 million. Still, the revenue declines and weaker EBITDA help explain why the stock has been crushed this year.
XBP Global Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:XBP) provides workflow automation, document processing, payment, and digital transformation services for enterprises and public-sector clients across 20 countries.
While we acknowledge the potential of XBP to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than XBP and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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