4 Ways to Get Your Business Ready for the Agentic AI Revolution
Experts suggest agentic AI will redefine business workflows during the rest of this decade. Consultant Accenture suggests agents — not people — will be the primary users of enterprise digital systems by 2030. As many as 93% of IT leaders intend to introduce AI agents within the next two years. However, despite all the hype around agentic AI, business leaders told ZDNET the path to an agentic transformation is far from straightforward, and many challenges must be overcome.
1. Find Great Use Cases
James Fleming, CIO at the Francis Crick Institute, said his organization is testing agents and experimenting with Meta’s Llama 3 model.
"We’re looking at various data sets to see if there’s any utility we can derive from the technology," he said, suggesting agents can help with literature synthesis.
"The amount of research published globally is astonishing. Staying ahead of your field is a full-time job. Synthesizing the last 25 papers in a discipline into something readable and informative means agents could often be quite good at that activity."
Fleming told ZDNET that initial explorations into agents have shown that automation can be challenging, especially in a world-leading research organization.
"That issue goes back to scientific rigor. You’ve got to be damn sure it’s doing something useful," he said. "Otherwise, it’s just another mechanism for generating false leads. So, to get over that hill of ‘this is a genuinely useful tool’ is a high one."
Fleming said the use case is everything. There is a big difference between using agents for diary planning and life-saving research. Humans must be kept in the loop.
"That’s not to say there’s no gain with the technology," he said. "It’s just targeting agents specifically within the research life cycle — and not at the stage where it can supplant human thought and creativity."
2. Create Room for Explorations
Carrie Jordan, Microsoft’s global director of program execution, said agents and bots are exciting innovations.
"The ability to connect them in the background, to talk to each other, and to achieve multiple tasks versus just a single thread, is potentially powerful," she said.
Jordan explained to ZDNET how the sales proposals team at Microsoft explores Copilot Studio technology as part of a Center of Excellence (CoE).
"They’re getting curious," she said. "Agents are still relatively new, so we’re figuring out the best way to leverage that technology. But there’s a lot of potential there. I think it will be a game-changer."
3. Build a Partnership Approach
Raymond Boyle, vice president of data and analytics at Hyatt Hotels, said his organization takes a tried-and-trusted approach to emerging technologies like agents: let line-of-business departments decide how innovations are exploited.
"We look at those transformations with our business partners and through a lens that looks at their work," he said.
"We won’t introduce change to the business. We’ll introduce change with the business and work through the challenges and things they believe are most important in finance, digital, loyalty, and sales."
Boyle told ZDNET that Hyatt gets its business leaders to think through how tech-enabled change might work in their parts of the organization.
4. Be Prepared to Fail
Keith Woolley, chief digital and information officer at the University of Bristol, is another digital leader who sees the potential benefits of agents. However, he said these advantages will become manifest over the longer term.
"We are looking at agentic AI, but we’re not implementing it yet," he said. "We sit as a management team and ask questions like, ‘Should we do our admissions process using agentic AI? What would be the advantage?’"
Woolley told ZDNET he could envision a situation in which AI and automation help assess and inform candidates worldwide about the status of their applications.
"The benefits to us, in terms of cost and operational efficiencies, could be substantial. Also, the tools could be effective for our student population, especially incoming undergraduates and postgraduates," he said.
"That would be great because we could ensure the bots keep students updated on what’s happening and how they’re progressing through the admissions process. That approach would make them feel more engaged from the start."
Conclusion
As the agentic AI revolution gains momentum, it’s crucial for businesses to prepare for the challenges and opportunities that come with it. By finding great use cases, creating room for explorations, building a partnership approach, and being prepared to fail, organizations can set themselves up for success in the agentic AI landscape.
FAQs
Q: What is agentic AI?
A: Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence agents that can perform tasks on their own, without human intervention.
Q: Why is agentic AI important for businesses?
A: Agentic AI has the potential to revolutionize business workflows, making them more efficient, productive, and cost-effective.
Q: How can businesses prepare for the agentic AI revolution?
A: Businesses can prepare by finding great use cases, creating room for explorations, building a partnership approach, and being prepared to fail.
Q: What are some potential use cases for agentic AI?
A: Agentic AI can be used for tasks such as data synthesis, customer service, and process automation, among others.
