Rethinking organizational design in the age of agentic AI (www.technologyreview.com)

A new report emphasizes the urgent need for organizations to rethink their operational frameworks as they integrate agentic AI agents into their workflows. Despite the high desire among 85% of companies to adopt these advanced AI agents within three years, a staggering 76% admit their current infrastructure isn’t prepared for that transition. Prasun Shah, CTO at PwC UK Consulting, warns against simply layering AI onto existing processes, which he likens to applying "sticky tape" to a broken model, ultimately hindering their potential to enhance productivity and decision-making. AI agents are capable of executing entire workflows, substantially reducing the time spent on low-value tasks, yet realizing their full capabilities requires a comprehensive redesign of organizational structures. Ema, an enterprise AI platform, has introduced the concept of agentic business transformation (ABT), which focuses on reconfiguring a company’s technology stack, workforce dynamics, and success metrics to seamlessly integrate AI agents into core operations. This transformation demands new frameworks for measuring success that prioritize outcomes over outputs, shifting from traditional metrics that may overlook the contributions of AI. As organizations increasingly adopt AI, they will face new management challenges and accountability questions, particularly considering the evolving interplay between human and AI roles. To bridge the existing ambition-execution gap, leaders must initiate discussions around these three pillars of ABT, laying the groundwork for a future that fully leverages AI's potential.