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AI usage in organizations is up by 23 percentage points from 2023 We’re almost approaching the three-year anniversary of ChatGPT--the event that marked when AI became mainstream and became integrated into almost every aspect of our lives, work, and entertainment. And so far, it’s been quite a whirlwind ride, hasn’t it? About 78% of respondents to a recent McKinsey survey “say their organizations use AI in at least one business function." This is "up from 72% in early 2024 and 55% a year earlier,” McKinsey and Company’s Global State of AI report reveals. Yet, despite employers deploying AI rapidly, there still lies uncertainty and confusion as to what it all means and how exactly to realize tangible ROI from artificial intelligence implementation, especially as far as AI agents are concerned, according to Asana’s latest State of AI at Work report. This means that as a leader or manager, if you’re not up to speed, you’re putting both your business and your career at risk. As an example of how crucial this is, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, recently remarked in a Bloomberg interview that AI is already doing 50% of the work at Salesforce; this comes as the CRM platform axed 4,000 jobs in September. The same company has an educational arm, Trailhead, that features a plethora of industry-relevant training content in bitesize, gamified formats. The content features certifications as well as other learning modules to help you upskill for in-demand skill sets, including AI, and particularly, agentic AI. MORE FOR YOU 5 Salesforce Courses To Learn Agentic AI Here are a few examples of courses on Salesforce that you can undertake to master agentic AI and upskill as a leader or manager, whether you work in tech or in a non-technical capacity. (The course examples below are comprised of what Salesforce terms modules, which are bite-sized units; and trails, which are essentially learning pathways.) Build an AI Agent with Agentforce Cert Prep: Agentforce Specialist Meet Agentforce Marketing Empower Your Employees With Specialized Agents in Slack Become An Agentblazer Legend What Is Agentic AI Anyway? Agentic AI, or the term “AI agents,” is when an AI tool can autonomously perform a sequence of complex tasks for you without requiring significant supervision (except for quality-checking human-in-the-loop supervision of course). As an example, I talk about my experience using ChatGPT’s AI agent in this recent Forbes article. You can build and deploy your own custom AI agents using tools like Zapier or Asana to leverage enterprise data and act as a co-worker or assistant, especially at the entry-level. For example, you can have AI agents that fill important, time-consuming roles such as: Leaders need to understand how to manage and deploy AI agents on their teams Marketing analyst Social media campaign copywriter Task creator and project updater Learning about agentic AI and building your AI skills should be a priority endeavor in your upskilling journey, because, according to IBM executive Justina Nixon-Saintil who I interviewed earlier this year, “leaders and managers will need to develop new skill sets to be able to manage hybrid teams: part-human, part-AI.” How To Build AI Agents To build your own AI agent, you first need to ask yourself these questions: What is the objective? What workflow or part of the workflow will this agent assist with? What will be its core functions? What types of data will need to be accessed, and how do we ensure data security at all costs when using this agent? Most importantly--where and how will humans be involved in quality checking? OpenAI has published an informative quick guide on how to build your own AI agent, and the key steps it outlines include: Select the right LLM Define what tools or “limbs” the agent will use to perform its tasks Configure instructions for the agent to know what to do in a given scenario Orchestra your AI agent to execute workflows effectively Build guardrails to ensure the agent is used for its intended ethical purpose and does not wander off-topic Using AI agents will soon become just as inevitable as other AI skills like Gen AI fluency. Leaders and managers (and those aspiring to leadership promotions) who upskill and train for this now, will be better equipped to lead efficiently, fast-track their careers, and have a wider net of lucrative career growth opportunities to choose from. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
