There’s a quiet revolution happening in how companies think about work, and it starts with artificial intelligence and the rise of agentic AI. These advanced digital agents aren’t just responding to prompts; they’re making decisions, collaborating with other systems and redefining what it means to be productive in the modern enterprise.

That shift is forcing organizations to rethink more than just their tech stacks. It’s challenging long-held assumptions about job roles, workflows and the value of human input. As these systems gain traction across industries, from creative teams to IT operations, the focus is no longer on whether AI can complete a task but on how agentic AI might transform the entire framework of how tasks get done, who manages them and what success actually looks like in a hybrid human-machine environment, according to Bob O’Donnell (pictured, right), president and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research LLC.

Creative Strategies’ Carolina Milanesi and TECHnalysis Research’s Bob O’Donnell talk with theCUBE about agentic AI.

“What’s happening with these AI tools is they are forcing us to rethink what we do,” O’Donnell said. “To your point, a lot of us have habits, and habits are hard to break.”

O’Donnell and Carolina Milanesi (left), president and principal analyst at Creative Strategies Inc., spoke with theCUBE’s Dave Vellante and Savannah Peterson at Dell Technologies World, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how agentic AI is transforming enterprise workflows, job roles and management structures, while exposing critical gaps in training and organizational readiness. (* Disclosure below.)

Navigating the complexity of agentic AI

Agentic AI, the emerging category of autonomous software agents designed to perform complex tasks on behalf of users, is now a focal point for enterprise strategy. Its appeal lies in the promise of intelligent delegation: systems that not only respond to commands, but anticipate needs, take initiative and interact with other systems. But this shift comes with steep challenges, especially around implementation, training and trust, according to O’Donnell.

“The other huge problem, and this is something I see coming up all the time, and I even have some research on this, is that people are developing these tools, but no one’s training their employees how to use them,” he said. “More than 55% of the employees, or of the companies that I surveyed were doing zero training.”

Without effective enablement, many AI deployments fall short, not because of technical failure but because employees aren’t given the time or support to integrate these tools into their workflows. Meanwhile, conversations about the nature of agents themselves, whether they’re tasks, outsourced workers or “digital employees,” are prompting a reexamination of management structures and data governance, Milanesi expalined.

“Whether or not you want to talk about it in terms of digital employee or not is a different story,” she said. “Or, If you’re even thinking is a task and it is a work to be done, is that work done outside your organization? And that has implications on your data and your IP. It’s quite interesting how people are navigating this and not making it easier.”

The discussion also highlighted a cultural and generational divide. While younger workers may adapt more easily to agentic systems, others remain bound by legacy frameworks and linear thinking. To bridge the gap, organizations need to not only invest in upskilling but foster environments where experimentation is encouraged and novel solutions are celebrated.

“Part of it can be solved if companies actually thought differently about the role that people will play,” Milanesi added. “To your point about we are focusing on the skill gap when it comes to AI to deploy AI, but we are not thinking about actually training the employees to do what they’re going to be doing next once AI comes in. It’s about changing our roles and changing the way we work. It’s not about making people obsolete.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Dell Technologies World:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell Technologies World. Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the primary sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE