Chapter 1
AI agents will catapult
us into a new era of employee productivity
As agents become more trusted and ubiquitous, they’ll free up people to focus on high-value tasks.
Agents are generative AI systems that can adapt to new information, make decisions, and act on a user’s behalf. They connect to your existing work operating system and are designed with clear roles for specific jobs to be done. They integrate into a wide range of business processes and operate alongside humans as teammates.
People working with agents are 72% more likely to say they feel “very productive” at their jobs.
As agents become more ubiquitous and trusted, they’ll save time and require less manual oversight, freeing up people to focus on higher-value tasks. They spend their time differently, doing more strategic work and skill building.
7
out
of
of
10
2
out
of
of
3
employees believe AI agents will be able to complete at least some parts of their job.
employees believe that working with AI agents will make their job more strategic and creative.
How to get started with
AI agents at work:
1
Start small, but start now.
Build trust with employees and encourage adoption by highlighting how agents free up time for skill development and higher-value work. This fosters a positive adoption environment.
2
Identify key tasks.
Analyze departmental workflows to pinpoint areas where agents can automate routine tasks. For early wins, focus on sales, marketing, HR, finance, and customer service.
3
Keep humans in the loop.
While AI agents can handle routine tasks, human judgment and creativity remain essential. The most effective AI deployments combine the efficiency of agents with people’s unique skill sets.
The agents that have clear functions within specific systems are getting the most engagement. One of ours is called ‘Ask HR,’ which is integrated with SAP SuccessFactors, our HR tool. Last week, I reorganized a team of 40 people inside Slack — without ever logging into the HR system — and saved a couple of hours.
Head of GTM Analytics
& Engineering
IBM
& Engineering
IBM
We think AI agents are well-suited for the repetitive, monotonous work of reading tax certificates or chasing payoff statements. This makes real-estate purchases orders of magnitude faster by reducing error rates and the frictions that homebuyers feel.
CEO & Co-Founder
Rexera
Rexera
When you go to a physician today, a human being evaluates a lot of information and looks for patterns to recognize. AI can help with this pattern recognition by processing a lot of data very quickly. But the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of actually treating patients is what humans will have more time to do.
CEO & Founder
MIMIT Health and the
CIMSS Innovative Solutions
MIMIT Health and the
CIMSS Innovative Solutions