Beyond automation: How agentic AI is powering the next workforce revolution

Think of those moments at work when small, annoying things have slowed you down. We’ve all been there: Maybe you were waiting for a password reset, or you were filling out multiple forms with exactly the same information. It’s frustrating to waste time and energy on tasks that don’t add value to your day or to the business.

For years, organizations have used automation to try to fix this. And yes, it helped. But traditional tools were built to do only what they were told. The problem is that this doesn’t fit the modern working environment where every customer asks a slightly different question, every project throws up unexpected challenges and every employee has unique needs.

But now a new chapter is taking shape. Instead of just automating repetitive work, organizations are introducing a different kind of digital worker that’s more of a virtual colleague than a mere tool.

Imagine having a digital colleague that learns, adapts and works autonomously with employees in real time. Rather than replacing humans, these digital workers are part of building a workplace where people can focus on the meaningful parts of their jobs while their digital partners take care of the rest. This is the promise of digital labor: scalable, intelligent and enterprise-ready.

What is agentic AI in the workplace?

Agentic AI gives digital workers the ability to think and act with intent. Rather than being told what to do at every step, they can interpret a situation, choose the right course of action and then carry it out.

It’s a far cry from the limited automation of the past, and this distinction matters. Traditional systems were task-bound — they simply followed their programming, nothing more. Agentic AI workers, on the other hand, are goal-oriented. They do more than follow instructions; they are context-aware, they manage complex workflows from start to finish, and they adapt as the need arises, all without constant human intervention.

This means they can take on more complex responsibilities such as decision-making and coordination, and they keep learning. While they might work quietly in the background, their impact is felt across every aspect of an organization’s day-to-day operations.

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The rise of the digital teammate

Digital workers are already in place across industries — monitoring quality in manufacturing, enabling onboarding in human resources and even assisting in medical diagnostics in healthcare. They’ve come a long way because of a shift in how AI agents are perceived.

These agents are no longer seen as add-ons, but rather as organized teammates. They are assigned roles, given goals and measured on outcomes much like their human counterparts have key performance indicators. Planning a project lands differently today, as you need to think about human and digital colleagues working together, each contributing their own strengths.

This shift is powered by three core capabilities inherent in agentic AI:

1. Autonomy: They can act independently.
2. Adaptability: They learn from context and instantly adapt to new situations.
3. Decision-making: They can make informed decisions that are right for your customers, your employees and your organization.

And this is only the beginning. In the near future, agentic AI agents will form a new workforce layer, embedded across departments and shaping how projects are planned, how services are delivered and how organizations adapt to change.

How to build a workplace powered by digital labor

When you’re setting up digital workers, there maybe a few hiccups along the way. It’s to be expected with a project this big. What looks simple in a pilot project suddenly slows down when approvals, privacy and governance come into play. But when you take a measured approach — setting up clear roles, putting guardrails around data and helping people adapt — there are real, tangible benefits. Costs come down, services move faster and employees feel supported.

Take it step by step:

Always begin in the right place

Get a thorough understanding of your current processes, your data and how well-equipped your teams are. From there, it’s best to adopt a 10–20–70 approach: 10% planning and governance, 20% pilot projects and 70% scaling. Equally important is the Model Context Protocol, a safety framework that makes sure digital workers only access the data and tools they need, with guardrails in place to protect privacy and compliance.

Start small, scale naturally

With a modular design and cloud-ready set-up, agentic AI fits naturally into enterprise environments, making it easy to deploy, integrate and scale. The trick, though, is to start slowly and gently move from basic automation to agentic architecture — where agentic AI has defined roles and responsibilities. It’s not something that happens overnight; it’s a considered journey. Once the agents’ value becomes clear, you can start to expand at your own pace.

Different strokes for different AI folks

Not every digital worker does the same thing. Some handle routine tasks, others manage complex processes and some make decisions. They’re like off-the-shelf workers — preconfigured for specific roles and ready to go. For instance, NTT DATA clients can choose preconfigured AI agents such as Quality.ai for compliance checks, Swarming.ai for resolving issues quickly or EMA for helping employees with everyday requests. These agents are already being used with great success in complex industries such as banking, manufacturing and healthcare.

Trust is important throughout

Governance and compliance are nonnegotiable when it comes to ensuring digital workers operate safely and fairly. When privacy, security and fairness are built in, digital workers act reliably and transparently from the outset.

You’ll notice the impact quickly. Organizations that have implemented AI are already cutting IT costs by almost 20% and getting services to customers about 14% faster, in NTT DATA’s experience. And employees are feeling more engaged in their work, with job satisfaction rising by almost 30%. The reason? Employees get to spend more time on work that makes a difference, while their digital colleagues perform the more mundane day-to-day tasks.

NTT DATA is setting the pace

At NTT DATA, we’ll help you take the next step toward a workplace powered by agentic AI. We have been at the forefront of agentic AI — including within our own business — so we know success isn’t only about pilot projects or proofs of concept. It’s about measurable outcomes. That’s why we stand behind our solutions until they deliver real value.

As seasoned providers, we help you navigate the hurdles and stay at your side from deployment through to continued optimization.

We bring together global scale, deep industry expertise and a heritage of delivering secure, enterprise-grade systems. All our solutions have governance, privacy and security built in, so digital workers run safely and reliably. Whether it’s preconfigured AI workers or enterprise-wide transformation programs, we design solutions that meet your current needs, but which will also grow with your business.

This is just the beginning of agentic AI and workplace digitalization. At NTT DATA, we’re turning the vision into reality.