A new era emerges. Agentic AI is disrupting traditional processes and will reshape market dynamics — much like the emergence of the internet did. But what is Agentic AI, and why does it affect every company across industries? These systems don’t just follow rigid instructions: they perceive, decide, and act with autonomy, pursuing goals while coordinating tools and actions themselves (Sukharevsky et al., 2025).
Imagine a simple example: you are the pilot of an airplane, and you have an AI-Copilot beside you, assisting when needed. Here the AI has little to no autonomy. That has changed profoundly. Nowadays, systems are emerging that can operate that airplane alone, only needing human supervision under certain conditions. Where once you were the pilot, now you might be supervising from home rather than doing every action yourself. What does that mean? Our roles as humans are changing. We need to understand how to adapt our ways of working to keep up in a competitive, fast-paced environment.
You might ask: “Nice to know, but what does it mean for me or my job?” Simple answer: It affects every part of our jobs, industry dynamics, and daily routines. There is a need to redesign processes and workflows that were built for human control, to enable AI to take over certain business functions. For example, in financial services: ordering a new credit card in your banking app may involve dozens of background steps and decisions. To improve your experience and enable autonomy in agentic systems, companies that want to lead must follow 5 crucial steps:
- Clarify Goal & Intent
Begin by defining what outcome you actually want, rather than mapping every decision. - Define Simple Generic Steps
Create a small set of core actions (like “Request → Action → Confirm”) that the AI can combine as needed. - Capture Feedback & Metrics
Monitor quality, speed, user satisfaction, etc., so you know if the redesign works. - Set Human Guardrails
Identify when AI needs human intervention: sensitive topics, rules, regulations. - Pilot, Learn & Expand
Start with one process or use case. Learn from feedback. Then refine and scale across other business units.
Companies like McKinsey warn that many gen AI and agentic AI pilots are failing or not delivering value unless workflows are re-designed from the ground up (Sukharevsky et al., 2025).
For example, Salesforce has cut roughly 4,000 customer support jobs, reducing its workforce in that division from ~9,000 to ~5,000, which the CEO says is due to AI agents taking over many support interactions (Sorace, 2025).
Redesigning processes isn’t optional. It’s now a competitive imperative.
Sukharevsky, A., Kerr, D., Hjartar, K., Hämäläinen, L., Bout, S., & Di Leo, V., with Dagorret, G. (2025, June 13). Seizing the agentic AI advantage: A CEO playbook to solve the gen AI paradox and unlock scalable impact with AI agents.McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our- insights/seizing-the-agentic-ai-advantage
Sorace, S. (2025, September 3). Salesforce cuts 4,000 jobs due to AI, CEO says. Fox Business. https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/salesforce-cuts-4000-jobs-due-ai-ceo-says?
