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Scaling AI: Why Your Path to Growth Requires Agentic AI

Knownwell

AI Knowhow Episode 66 Summary

  • Explore how agentic AI elevates AI to an active participant, potentially being akin to the Industrial Revolution for cognitive work.
  • Delve into the importance of trust in AI, and how it empowers leaders to focus on strategic challenges rather than repetitive tasks.
  • Learn how agentic AI can streamline complex roles and prepare businesses for future challenges.

Agentic AI is a concept that everyone from OpenAI to Microsoft to Salesforce is betting will make a big splash in business 2025. In this episode of AI Knowhow, New York Times bestselling author Charlene Li joins Pete Buer to give us the inside scoop on why agentic AI’s moment all of a sudden seems to be now.

And in our roundtable discussion, Knownwell CMO Courtney Baker, CEO David DeWolf, and CPO/CTO Mohan Rao weigh in on where they see agentic AI having the greatest impact in the coming years.

What’s different about agentic AI?

Unlike traditional AI tools that require human interaction at every turn, agentic AI agents can function independently, driving businesses towards unprecedented efficiency. Charlene describes this shift as “the Industrial Revolution for cognitive work,” emphasizing how it removes bottlenecks in decision-making processes and enables real-time scalability.

“Agentic AI elevates AI from being a passive tool, one that you have to be at your keyboard to use, to being an active participant in your operations and in your life,” Charlene says. “We’re here because we have this converging of technologies—generative AI, data processing, and machine learning—that create this perfect storm for innovation.”

Transforming Leadership and Trust

Throughout the episode, the theme of trust in AI technologies comes up. Charlene hits on the trust that leaders must establish with their teams about how AI will be deployed and the changes they expect it to bring about. David and Mohan stress that leaders must navigate the uncertainties inherent in leveraging AI without constant oversight. By focusing on strategic imperatives and fostering innovation, leaders can harness AI’s potential to enhance complex decision-making.

“AI operates in the domain of knowledge, but humans operate in the domain of wisdom,” Charlene says. And while many of us think of CEOs as irreplaceable, in truth, much of what CEOs do can be automated with AI. This isn’t to say that we’ll all be answering to AI CEOs in the near future, but to illustrate the larger point that even the traditional roles of the CEO may need to be rethought and re-engineered in the age of AI.

Bridging Knowledge Management Gaps

One of the significant challenges agentic AI can help address is the inefficiency of current knowledge management practices. In services organizations especially, historical knowledge exists in the heads of the team or in a set of PPT presentations and PDFs sitting in a shared drive somewhere. Charlene draws attention to how AI can revolutionize knowledge management by turning unstructured data into organized, actionable insights, liberating knowledge from static documents and tribal knowledge.

Preparing for the Future with Agentic AI

Looking ahead, the conversation turns to both the potential pitfalls and exciting possibilities that lie in the path of AI integration. With thoughtful consideration of ethical impacts and a focus on human-centric leadership, businesses can leverage agentic AI to foster environments where technology complements human creativity and intuition. “Agentic AI can take on heavy lifting, empowering leaders to focus on what’s truly important–the people,” says David DeWolf.

As businesses step into 2025, embracing agentic AI offers a promising avenue for achieving scalability and innovation. By fostering trust and enhancing leadership through technological augmentation, 2025 holds a ton of promise for those leaders and companies ready to adapt and integrate these powerful capabilities into their operations.

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