---
type: "synthesis"
sources: ["agentic"]
tags: ["evidence", "epistemics", "verification"]
id: "cross-unverified-metrics"
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-agentic"
originDay: 6
articleStem: "hbr-seg-agentic"
sourceUrl: "(unified vault: 9 sources)"
sourceTitle: "HBR — Firm Ⅱ-A · Agentic operating model / brand code / workstreams"
---
Every article in this corpus leans on at least one striking, quotable statistic — and in nearly every case the enrichment overlays flagged the specific number as *illustrative or self-reported, not independently verified.* A downstream agent must carry this meta-caveat.

The roll-call of hedge-worthy figures:
- A002: [[claim-software-engineering-agentic-activity|software engineering = "nearly 50% of agentic activity"]] (Anthropic, unverified) and [[claim-agentic-marketing-roi|98× / 80% / 17× / 3×]] gains.
- A016: [[claim-escalation-increase|44% escalation]], [[claim-quality-control-decline|18% fewer errors]], [[claim-perception-gap|76% vs 31%]] — internally reported.
- A017: [[claim-acemoglu-underestimate|"thousand-fold"]] gains ([[quote-acemoglu-floor]]) — a rhetorical extrapolation, not a forecast.
- A018: [[claim-consumer-ai-adoption-timeline|60%]], [[claim-prompt-wording-alters-recommendations|78.3%]], [[claim-responsible-ai-drives-adoption|2.4%→63.2%]] — sourced but uncorroborated.
- A026: the [[claim-multi-agent-failure|40–80% multi-agent failure rate]] — "the single most important number to hedge."
- A028: [[claim-two-diverse-beats-sixteen|2 beats 16]] and [[claim-diversity-improves-performance|~25%]] — single studies; only [[claim-weird-bias|WEIRD bias]] is strongly grounded.
- A058: [[claim-agentforce-resolution-rate|~74%]] and [[claim-sdr-capacity-increase|150→350+ meetings]] — Salesforce self-reported.

**The pattern:** *directional claims are well-supported; precise multipliers are weak.* The best-grounded numeric claim in the entire corpus is A028's WEIRD-bias finding (Atari et al.). Rule for answering: state the direction confidently, attribute the figure to its source, and flag it as unverified. This discipline matters most when numbers feed the speed narrative ([[cross-speed-double-edged]]) or the ROI case for rewiring ([[cross-rewire-not-bolt-on]]).