Start your day with intelligence. Get The OODA Daily Pulse.
There is a story being told about artificial intelligence (AI) that goes something like this: First, AI answered our questions, then it wrote our content, and now—with agentic AI—it will execute our work. Each step is framed as one step further from human involvement and one step closer to a world where machines replace the people who once performed those tasks. I want to tell you a different story. A recent Stanford Digital Economy Lab study of 51 companies that deployed AI found that outcomes varied not based on the sophistication of the technology, but on the quality of human leadership, process design and organizational readiness surrounding it. Former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, citing the same research, put it plainly: The businesses making the most progress are not those with better technology; they are those prepared to adapt how their people operate around it.
Full opinion : Agentic AI is more human than old-school automation.