How Agentic AI is Reshaping HR Roles?

A new human-machine collaboration is shaping the future of human capital and HR. The last few months we have seen new developments on Gen AI and as a result, CHROS and HR leaders are experimenting with AI, assessing impacts, aligning on use-cases, and educating the workforce.

Agentic AI is the next big breakthrough that will change the way HR delivers value, enables personalized employee experience, and refines service delivery. Agentic AI are systems that are able to work independently, work 24/7, analyze and process data, make decisions, create action plans and learn from its experiences to solve complex problems.

We are talking about systems, different than digital chatbots, that are able to complete complex tasks, break it down in multi-step steps/workflows and produce outcomes autonomously. For example, think about performance management; agentic AI can consolidate feedback and recommend actions, create talking points for 1-1 conversations, propose performance rankings based on performance data and coach managers to provide feedback.

Just recently, OpenAI announced “Swarm” which is an experimental framework designed to revolutionize multi-agent orchestration, enabling multiple AI agents to work together and communicate with each other, and interconnect use-cases that previously were too complex to execute. Microsoft also announced a new series of autonomous agents.

To give you a day in the life, the employee will speak with a centralize agent that will work with Microsoft copilot and Oracle HR agents to execute multiple tasks and connect with HR Geckos chatbot for HR service delivery; creating a seamless employee experience.

We are still in early stages but this is where the market is going and it will impact how the workforce interacts with technology and how HR provides services going forward.

💡How is HR Technology Market is Responding?

HCM platforms and point-solutions vendors are shifting gears and focusing on embedding and/or developing agentic AI capabilities. HCM platforms are moving fast and launching to market use-case driven AI agents across the employee life cycle. I think the big opportunity for HCM platforms is to customized agents based on industry verticals and provide professional services (strategy + implementation). Also, acquired AI-driven point solutions and partner directly with AI players such as OpenAI and Anthropic to tailor new offerings.

Almost every HR tech vendor is offering agents who focus on a specific area in HR; from recruiting, career mobility, people analytics and service delivery bringing overlapping capabilities, data privacy challenges and complexity around managing and integrating all these agents.

Management consulting firms are also reinventing their value proposition and moving to AI-driven solution offerings and services vs traditional consulting models.

🌟New Roles in HR

The bigger picture here is to start thinking about the future of HR and the roadmap to embed AI into process and workflows across the talent value chain.

To unlock value, CHROs need to invest in foundational enablers such as organizational design, operating model, workforce, roles, data and technology to drive end-to-end transformation.

Key HR Roles to Enable Agentic AI

• CHRO: to lead change, culture and workforce into the future. The liaison between the C-Suite, the CEO and the board to leverage the full potential of data, technology and AI to drive innovation and profitability.
• Data Scientist: to perform advance data analysis, build models and leverage AI to connect talent to business value.
• Product Owner: to design, manage and optimize AI-powered solutions and products; align AI initiatives with talent and business priorities.
• AI Compliance Manager: to ensure AI tools comply with labor laws and regulations as well as evaluate risk, manage data privacy and security concerns related to AI in HR
• AI HR Platforms & Tools Lead: to assess, plan and execute the integration of AI into HR systems and processes.
• AI in HR Consultants: to partner with the C-Suite and HR leaders to define roadmap, capabilities, align on use-case prioritization and value cases analysis and drive execution.

What Lies Ahead

This effort is a multi-year journey and will require to lead with some early wins and to test and learn quickly. Also, success with Gen AI is tied to high-quality, ‘business-ready’ data, which is led by a robust data foundation, data governance, and standards.

Furthermore, assess the impact on talent and prepare the workforce plan for upskilling. Lastly, transformational change will be critical to embed new ways of working and make people comfortable with AI.

The one pager below provides a high-level view including new roles to enable AI agents’ strategy and implementation.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Connect with me to discuss further.