Leaders of many organizations are urging their teams to adopt agentic AI to improve efficiency, but are finding it hard to achieve any benefit. Managers attempting to add AI agents to existing human teams may find that bots fail to faithfully follow their instructions, return pointless or obvious results or burn precious time and resources spinning on tasks that older, simpler systems could have accomplished just as well. The technical innovators getting the most out of AI are finding that the technology can be remarkably human in its behavior. And the more groups of AI agents are given tasks that require cooperation and collaboration, the more those human-like dynamics emerge. Our research suggests that, because of how directly they seem to apply to hybrid teams of human and digital workers, the most effective leaders in the coming years may still be those who excel at understanding the timeworn principles of human management. We have spent years studying the risks and opportunities for organizations adopting AI. Our 2025 book, Rewiring Democracy, examines lessons from AI adoption in government institutions and civil society worldwide. In it, we identify where the technology has made the biggest impact and where it fails to make a difference. Today, we see many of the organizations we’ve studied taking another shot at AI adoption—this time, with agentic tools. While generative AI generates, agentic AI acts and achieves goals such as automating supply chain processes, making data-driven investment decisions or managing complex project workflows. The cutting edge of…
