At the SHRM India Annual Conference on 13th November Sandeep Alur , the CTO of Microsoft Innovation Hub in India talked about how Agentic AI will work with humans, in organizations.
This was my takeaway:
Agentic AI—AI systems that can perceive, reason, take actions, and autonomously pursue goals—will change how humans and organizations work together. But it won’t replace humans; instead, it will reshape roles, workflows, and decision-making. Here’s a clear, practical view of how it will work inside organizations:
1. Humans define goals; AI executes
Leaders and teams will set objectives, constraints, ethical boundaries, and success metrics.
Agentic AI will then break those goals into tasks and execute them autonomously.
Example:
A sales leader sets a quarterly target → AI identifies ideal prospects → drafts outreach → schedules meetings → updates CRM → alerts the team when human intervention is needed.
2. AI becomes an autonomous “digital coworker”
Instead of being a tool, Agentic AI will act like a team member with:
-
A job description
-
Clear processes
-
Access to systems
-
Responsibility for outcomes
Roles AI agents will take on:
-
Recruiting assistant (source candidates, screen resumes, schedule interviews)
-
Finance analyst (monitor spend, flag variances, prepare reports)
-
HR service agent (resolve employee queries end-to-end)
-
Operations optimizer (monitor workflows, fix bottlenecks autonomously)
3. Humans move from doing tasks to supervising systems
Humans will:
-
Monitor dashboards of multiple agents
-
Approve exceptions
-
Handle relationship-driven and ethical decisions
-
Improve prompts, workflows, policies
-
Provide the contextual judgment AI lacks
This shifts many jobs from task execution → judgment & oversight.
4. AI collaborates across departments automatically
Agents will talk to each other, not just humans.
For example:
-
A Hiring Agent identifies new headcount needs →
-
alerts the Budget Agent →
-
which checks cost →
-
then coordinates with the IT Agent to plan equipment provisioning.
Cross-functional friction reduces dramatically.
5. Work becomes more proactive and predictive
Agentic AI will continuously scan systems and take preventive actions.
Examples:
-
Predicting attrition and suggesting interventions
-
Spotting compliance risks before they become violations
-
Notifying managers of performance dips before reviews
-
Automatically reallocating work to remove bottlenecks
6. Humans focus on relationships, creativity, and strategic judgment
The human differentiators become:
-
Leadership & trust-building
-
Empathy & conflict management
-
Creativity & storytelling
-
Strategic analysis in ambiguous situations
Work becomes more human, not less.
7. New hybrid workflows emerge
Organizations will see the rise of:
-
AI-first processes (AI initiates, humans validate)
-
Human-first processes (humans lead, AI supports)
-
Fully autonomous processes (AI runs end-to-end, humans audit)
The mix depends on risk, regulation, and company culture.
8. Governance, ethics, and transparency become crucial
Organizations will need:
-
AI governance frameworks
-
Auditable logs of AI decisions
-
Clear accountability: who owns what?
-
Guardrails to prevent autonomous drift
-
Employee upskilling and change management
-
New roles (AI supervisors, prompt engineers, agent workflow designers)
9. Employee experience improves through augmented HR
Agentic AI will:
-
Personalize learning paths
-
Offer real-time coaching
-
Automate administrative tasks
-
Provide tailored wellbeing nudges
-
Draft career plans
-
Mediate between employees and systems
HR becomes more strategic and human-centric.
10. Productivity shows step-change improvements
Early studies suggest agentic AI could increase knowledge-worker productivity by 40–80%, mainly due to:
-
Reduced administrative load
-
Faster decision-making
-
Fewer handoffs
-
Always-on intelligent support
-
Automated implementations (not just insights)
Bottom line
Agentic AI will not replace humans—it will reshape how they contribute.
Humans will become:
-
Strategists
-
Supervisors
-
Creative problem solvers
-
Relationship builders
AI will become:
-
The executor
-
The analyst
-
The coordinator
-
The optimizer
Together, they form a hybrid workforce that is faster, smarter, and more adaptable.
