2025: the year of 'Agentic AI' & 'Agentic Teams' - are you ready?

Dear Visionary Leader?? - Thank you for connecting. We share cutting-edge, practical insights on how to win in the age of AI. If you're new to our network and would like to enhance your AI strategy, click the "subscribe" button above...

In this bumper end-of-year edition of AI Risk & Strategy we share ten of our most popular articles, focusing on the impact of Agentic AI and the opportunity around Agentic Teams.

Our big theme has been on how enterprises can (safely) exploit advanced forms of AI to transform business models, with a focus on knowledge-intensive sectors.

If your company would benefit from an Executive Briefing on any or all of the topics below, please get in touch...We are taking bookings for Q1 2025.

In this edition we cover:

• 9 Types of Workforce Augmentation with Gen AI - don't miss out on the green zones!
• 'Agentic Teams' in action - we describe one of the world's most advanced case studies
• Why your HR strategy needs an overhaul - you have to manage non-human as well as human resources now
• How (fast) is AI developing? - what every exec needs to understand, from Eric Schmidt
• The Gen AI 'Productivity Paradox' - short term gains will quickly dissipate
• Where's the ROI from Gen AI? Why your AI strategy needs a new strategy
• The Agentic Mesh - a vendor-neutral, enterprise-grade architecture that's fit for the future
• AI Assistants vs Agents vs Teams - don't get confused. Appreciate the differences
• Lessons from the AI Masters - what all companies can learn from Meta's transformation
• AI Visionaries Club - calling all visionaries - your time has come to re-shape your companies!

Wishing all our 4000+ readers a very Happy New Year. Enjoy the read and please continue to give us your input and feedback.

1.) 9 Types of Organisational Augmentation with?Gen AI. Our framework is quickly becoming a popular reference point for companies planning their AI strategies: from 'table-stakes' assistance to 'game-changing' augmentation with Agentic AI. In 2025, if you're not playing in the green zones in the chart below you are at risk of being out-competed.

2.) Agentic Teams?Case Study - the future's already here, it's just not evenly distributed. This real-world example of an operations department staffed entirely by 'AI agents', collaborating with each other and with human co-workers over Slack, has grabbed a lot of attention. Many thought we'd made it up! (Spoiler alert - we hadn't. We're now bringing this capability to your competitors)

3.) The AI-Augmented Workforce?- Why your HR strategy needs an upgrade. Given the above, the future of work will be characterized by hybrid teams of biological and digital employees. This creates a golden opportunity for bold HR leaders to champion the opportunity to reinvent not just how their organizations work, but how HR itself delivers value.

4. Eric Schmidt on How Fast AI is Developing. It's really important that non-technical leaders take the time to understand how AI technology is developing, enabling the scenarios above, and many more. Google's former CEO is the ultimate insider. He was recorded talking candidly to students at Stanford recently about what's actually coming...very soon. The video we shared got 180,000 impressions!

5.) The Gen AI Productivity Paradox - Leaders of companies in knowledge-intensive sectors (banks, insurers, etc) risk being lulled into a false sense of security by short term cost savings and efficiency gains which fail to translate into sustainable profits. Competitors quickly catch up, leaving firms burdened by high costs and commoditized services. We describe how to avoid this trap.

6.) ROI from Gen AI - why your AI Strategy needs a Strategy. We're seeing a significant gap between what Boards and CEOs are seeking from Gen AI and the ability of their organisations to deliver. Achieving meaningful ROI - that moves the needle at the enterprise level - is going to remain elusive unless some fundamentals are addressed.

7.) Agentic Mesh?- an enterprise-grade architecture for winning with Agentic AI. This framework provides a robust vision for managing agentic systems within enterprise ecosystems. Its vendor-neutral, principle-driven approach provides the tools to foster trust, scalability, and economic vitality. We believe it will help empower organizations to unlock new levels of productivity, agility, and innovation.

8.) AI Assistants vs. AI Agents vs. Agentic Teams: key characteristics and comparisons. Here's a quick 'cheat sheet' to understand the key features and benefits of different types of ‘Agentic AI’. Share with your colleagues to increase understanding and awareness.

9.) Learn from the AI Masters: Meta's AI strategy and what it means for leaders of non-tech firms. You can't replicate Meta's technical capabilities, but you can copy its strategic ambition: move beyond viewing AI as a tool for automation and efficiency to see it as a way to fundamentally reimagine organizational capability, in particular through massive scaling of digital, non-human, ‘synthetic’ workers. It's time to make bold moves.

10.) AI Visionaries Club – Inaugural Roundtable. On 5th December 2024, we assembled a select group of thought leaders and innovators in a salon-style, Chatham House conversation in London, in order to address the following questions: 1.) What is the best way to enlist people within companies into using AI? 2.) What is the optimal use by corporations of the regained productivity from AI (other than reduction-in-force / redundancies)? Answers at the link above.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please share this edition of the AI Risk & Strategy newsletter with others and encourage them to subscribe, for free, at this link. You can also follow us on LinkedIn at AI Risk