The new frontier: Why agentic AI should be on every CIO’s roadmap

As a senior technology executive at a leading IT service provider, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with CIOs who wear multiple hats — they need to act both as business strategists and as IT leaders. These roles demand a constant focus on enabling innovation, improving operational efficiency and improving the experiences of both customers and employees across the organization.

When it comes to AI, I’ve seen firsthand how CIOs are uniquely positioned to lead the charge in bringing this technology into their organizations – and one of the most exciting developments right now is agentic AI, a game changer that I believe should be at the center of every CIO’s strategic roadmap.

These intelligent, autonomous agents are poised to transform how organizations operate, innovate and connect with the people they serve.

Let’s explore why agentic AI is quickly becoming a strategic imperative for the C-suite.

What is agentic AI?

To understand the potential of agentic AI, it’s important to distinguish it from traditional automation and GenAI.

GenAI — the model behind popular tools like ChatGPT and DALL·E — excels at generating content in response to user prompts. Whether it’s text, images or audio, GenAI can produce outpumsts that are often indistinguishable from content created by humans.

Agentic AI systems go a step beyond generating content. They also act autonomously, set and pursue goals, and interact with their environments to carry out complex tasks.

These agents operate with a level of intelligence that traditional automation simply cannot match. They can adapt to new situations, learn from interactions and take initiative to streamline processes and improve outcomes.

CIOs are all too familiar with the pressure to deliver more — faster, smarter and with fewer resources. Agentic AI is a powerful tool to help them meet these demands. These AI agents are a crucial asset for organizations that want to lead the way in the age of intelligent transformation.

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Why agentic AI is a strategic advantage

Operational efficiency

CIOs are always looking for ways to streamline operations without compromising service quality. Agentic AI excels at automating routine, repetitive tasks across business functions. AI agents can also work around the clock and handle high-volume tasks with precision and speed.

Imagine a self-service IT support system that can resolve issues autonomously, a finance automation tool that processes transactions without human intervention or a supply chain orchestration platform that manages inventory levels in real time.

By offloading these repetitive tasks to AI agents, CIOs can cut operational costs, improve SLA compliance and reallocate human capital, leaving the IT team free to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Decision-making intelligence

No organization can truly thrive without data-driven decision-making, but extracting meaningful insights from massive datasets is always a tough challenge.

Agentic AI changes the game by not only providing data but also analyzing trends, tracking key metrics and sharing actionable insights in real time. Acting as strategic copilots, AI agents help decision-makers navigate complex data landscapes with ease.

In finance, for example, these agents can forecast revenue trends, identify potential risks and suggest mitigation strategies. In inventory management, they can manage stock levels based on real-time demand and supply chain conditions.

Using agentic AI, business leaders can work more proactively, speeding up execution while reducing risk. For CIOs, this means equipping the entire organization to make smarter, faster decisions at every level.

Better employee and customer experiences

Business success hinges on both employee and customer satisfaction, and agentic AI is redefining what’s possible for both groups.

For employees, AI agents are like personal productivity assistants. They handle routine tasks like scheduling meetings and summarizing content, which frees up time and reduces mental strain. Furthermore, virtual HR agents can answer employee questions around the clock.

For customers, agentic AI offers fast and personalized service through chatbots, voice assistants and real-time recommendations that boost satisfaction, foster engagement and build loyalty.

A scalable foundation for innovation

CIOs are always under pressure to help other business functions to innovate, and agentic AI creates a flexible platform for safe experimentation and growth. These agents can start by handling specific tasks and then scale up to manage entire processes involving several departments.

For instance, an AI agent initially deployed to automate a single task in the marketing department can evolve to manage entire campaigns, from content creation to audience targeting.

This modular approach makes it easier to prototype quickly, develop iteratively and transform the entire organization.

With this scalability, CIOs can lead innovation cycles rather than just keep up. The potential for new revenue streams and business models is limitless.

What’s next for CIOs

Implementing multiagent workflows

An exciting new challenge for CIOs is managing multiagent systems at scale. In these systems, multiple AI agents — each with specialized abilities — collaborate to complete complex tasks. They achieve their goals by sharing information and dividing tasks between them in a flexible, adaptive way.

However, integrating these agents across diverse technology stacks is complex. It can result in significant issues relating to governance, risk management, interoperability, data exchange and security.

At NTT DATA, we’ve combined our Agentic AI Services for Hyperscaler AI Technologies with Microsoft’s multi-agent capabilities added to Azure AI Foundry Agent Service to observe and orchestrate agentic AI solutions across platforms and offer these capabilities as an innovative, high-value managed service. 

We work with the Microsoft platform because it supports the integration of agents from different vendors and platforms, meaning that they can now work together effectively.

• ALSO READ → NTT DATA and Microsoft simplify multiagent AI systems at scale

Agentic AI centers of excellence

CIOs are uniquely positioned to spearhead innovation by establishing agentic AI centers of excellence (CoEs) in their organizations. A CoE, acting as a strategic hub, will drive their agentic AI transformation, bringing in deep expertise, prioritized use cases and active monitoring of ROI, thus ensuring they are using AI as effectively as possible to achieve their business objectives.

The CoE will also foster cross-functional collaboration and governance of AI agents. By centralizing expertise in this way and aligning AI initiatives with their business objectives, CIOs can accelerate safe, scalable AI adoption.

For forward-thinking CIOs, investing in an agentic AI CoE today lays the foundation for tomorrow’s competitive advantages.

Embedding governance and trust by design

Another challenge in managing multiagent AI systems is keeping all agents operating within governance and compliance frameworks. As more organizations adopt agentic AI, trust and ethical responsibility become critical.

Using a combination of reliable platforms and governance frameworks, CIOs can build ethical use, transparency and regulatory compliance into their agentic AI solutions from the start — including data-privacy controls and policy-aligned agent behavior.

Only then can they lead with confidence, knowing that their AI deployments meet top-tier standards for security, integrity and accountability. This is particularly important in industries where regulatory compliance is a must, such as healthcare, financial services and the public sector.

When governance and trust are embedded by design, agentic AI systems will align closely with an organization’s values and goals.

Partnering with an expert

Partners like NTT DATA offer a strategic, cost-effective and scalable way to implement agentic AI and accelerate ROI. Organizations don’t have to deal with the complexities and costs of building and maintaining these systems in-house.

When CIOs rely on the technical expertise of managed service providers (MSPs), proven frameworks and access to leading-edge infrastructure, they can implement AI solutions faster and keep improving them as they integrate the technology into their business functions.

Moreover, MSPs provide round-the-clock support in critical areas such as data security, compliance and model monitoring to help their customers avoid common pitfalls.

When choosing an MSP, a CIO should consider a potential partner’s track record in deploying and managing AI and machine-learning models at scale, especially in agentic architectures and autonomous decision-making. The MSP should also offer end-to-end services, from design to deployment and monitoring, and be able to customize solutions to the CIO’s business needs, including hybrid and multicloud support.

Furthermore, the CIO needs to pay attention to the MSP’s governance, security and compliance tools as well as their training and support services.

Now is the time to act

Agentic AI isn’t merely another tool in the CIO’s toolkit. It’s a strategic enabler of transformation that creates new value through innovation.

At NTT DATA, we work with organizations across industries, and I can tell you firsthand how exciting it has been. We’ve been particularly energized by the conversations around managed services, which have shown us the true potential of agentic AI.

Organizations that move fast to adopt this technology will gain a lasting competitive advantage, while those clinging to traditional models will face inefficiencies and rising operational costs. Over time, this technology gap can undermine market relevance, talent retention and profitability.

To start your agentic AI journey with confidence, partner with NTT DATA. Our wide range of agentic AI services provides the support you need to thrive. While others may build agents, we go the extra mile by deploying, securing, optimizing and managing them for you.

CIOs who embrace agentic AI now will shape the intelligent enterprises of tomorrow. Don’t wait — the future of business is here, and it’s powered by agentic AI.