Work, reworked: What it takes to win in the age of Agentic AI

Executive summary

Our report explores the transformative potential of Agentic AI as a competitive force rather than a new technology tool. Agentic AI is about the capability of autonomous digital agents (also known as “digital workers”) to perform complex tasks with minimal human oversight, prompting a fundamental reimagining on how work is designed, delivered, and scaled. We introduce the concept of a “Human-Agentic Workforce”, where humans and AI agents collaborate to drive exponential productivity, innovation, and value creation.

We outline five foundational shifts required to enable this new model: 

1. Shift from technology-led to human-centric transformation mindset – Focus on amplifying human potential, not just automating processes.

2. Redesign roles around outcomes rather than tasks – Enable agents to work with speed and scale, while humans focus on creativity and empathy.

3. Build AI-native operating models from the ground up – Ensure the models are fluid and adaptive for scaled impact.

4. Scale performance through intelligent work redesign – Achieve growth by rethinking work, not by increasing headcount.

5. Foster organization readiness to overcome cultural inertia – Build trust and scale learning faster than the pace of technological change.

These shifts are not incremental—they represent a system-level reinvention of how enterprises think, lead, and perform.

Through real-world examples, our report illustrates how organizations can move from experimentation to enterprise-wide impact with agentic AI by embracing “system codependency”. System codependency refers to the interdependent progress of multiple organizational areas, where progress in one domain relies on alignment and shared ownership across others. To achieve system codependency, organizations should focus on three key actions:

• Establishing a connected leadership system where business leaders jointly align ambitions, manage outcomes (instead of people), and reimagine governance for human-agentic workforces.

• Fundamentally redesigning work, including roles, workflows and organizational structures, for value creation and human-agent collaboration.

• Adopting a dual-speed approach—empowering individuals to experiment and learn, while transforming enterprise systems and policies—to make organizational readiness a strategic differentiator.

Ultimately, leaders need to architect a future where humans and agents co-create outcomes that neither could achieve alone. This is not just about adopting new tools—it’s about reshaping the system of work itself to unlock human potential and scale impact responsibly. Organizations can get started by: recognizing their business needs for AI and assessing its readiness for human-agents teaming; adopting a dual-speed approach for rapidly testing and deploying agentic AI in targeted areas, while maintaining safeguards and governance to manage risk and ensure trust; and, aligning strategy with measurable outcomes, ensuring data and workflow readiness, defining human-agent collaboration, securing early wins, and redesigning work to fully integrate AI capabilities across the enterprise.

The Human-Agentic Workforce that is human-led, agent-enabled and outcome-anchored is not a distant vision, it’s an urgent imperative for organizations seeking to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving AI landscape.

For a deeper look at how Agentic AI is reshaping the system of work, refer to our global article here.