Shopify’s CEO recently released a memo stating that “Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify” and that he won’t approve new hire requests if the job can be performed by AI. This stance reflects a broader trend, with companies like Procter & Gamble and Citigroup echoing similar expectations around AI adoption.

Within the next year, AI agents are predicted to become integral to most professional workflows by automating repetitive tasks, providing real-time insights and enhancing decision-making. Agentic AI — autonomous generative AI agents — are beginning to merge seamlessly with the human workforce, as seen with OpenAI’s recent launch of Operator and similar agent rollouts from Anthropic and Google.

It’s only a matter of time before AI agents become a constant presence in the workplace. They have already integrated into employee workflows within:

• Customer support (retail/e-commerce): AI agents handle tier-one inquiries, troubleshoot common issues and escalate complex cases, freeing up human agents for high-touch service.
• Health care administration: Agents assist with appointment scheduling, insurance verification, and real-time documentation during patient visits, reducing administrative burden on staff.
• Software development (tech): AI coding agents suggest bug fixes, write test scripts and generate boilerplate code, accelerating development cycles and reducing manual tasks.

This raises a critical question: What employee readiness challenges will arise as human and agent workforces blend — and are organizations truly prepared for the shift? More importantly, how can today’s organizations equip their people to thrive in this impending agentic revolution?

Though many organizations are beginning to deploy AI agents into their workflows, not many have taken meaningful steps to prepare their workforces and leaders for the widespread adoption and the transformative impact it will bring.

It is imperative that they begin workforce preparation now to keep up with the rapid pace of change. Organizations that better prepare their workforces in anticipation of major transformation can gain a competitive edge. And the true competitive advantage lies in how a workforce uniquely unlocks and multiplies the value of AI agents both within the organization and across the value system.

To create differentiated human capability in the agentic era, leaders must shift the workforce’s mindset, skills and training solutions.

They must follow three key best practices:

1. Develop foundational technical literacy at scale to ensure employees can understand and work alongside AI tools.
2. Train teams on agent strategic oversight so they can guide and manage AI outputs effectively.
3. Double down on soft skills like critical thinking, communication and adaptability — the human strengths that AI can’t replicate.

This article will review how to embody these best practices to prepare your human and AI workforces to integrate, so your business can perform better — and keep up with today’s accelerated pace of change.

1. Develop Technical Literacy Skills at Scale.

A critical component to workforce enablement in an agentic world is implementing technical literacy skills training. This learning solution can look like facilitating an on-the-job training program tailored to teaching AI applications or AI agent technology bootcamps for your organization’s people.

When developing the learning, ensure that employees will understand the basics of AI, machine learning and how AI agents consume, process and interact with software in addition to training on using generative AI for productivity, analyzing data with AI and automating routine tasks.

Include principles of how agents communicate through application programming interfaces (APIs), a set of rules and protocols that allow different software application to communication with each other. For example, when a weather app pulls data from a weather service, it’s using that service’s API to request and receive the information.

Despite roles, all workers will need to understand the basics and be encouraged to experiment and knowledge-share with others through peer-to-peer learning groups. This can also help reinforce the learning, leaving the space to build upon the learning to further their skills and knowledge.

2. Train for Strategic Oversight.

As AI agents become more embedded in employee workflows, organizations must go beyond basic digital upskilling. They must develop a training program focused on strategic oversight — a critical set of human skills required to guide, collaborate with, and optimize the use of intelligent agents in daily operations.

What are strategic oversight skills? At their core, these skills combine creativity, problem-solving, lateral thinking and critical thinking — all essential to navigate a workplace where human and agent collaboration becomes the norm.

• Creativity is foundational. Employees must be able to envision how intelligent agents can be used together in novel ways to transform how the business delivers value.
  • For example, a bank could deploy AI agents for chat support, fraud monitoring and financial advice. A creative employee might connect these functions into a unified customer concierge system — one where agents communicate with each other to respond holistically to a customer issue, rather than through siloed handoffs.

• Problem-solving can enable employees to redesign workflows for optimal agent-to-agent and human-agent collaboration. This includes spotting failures in agent logic, managing unintended consequences and identifying workarounds.
  • For instance, a retailer using agents for real-time inventory tracking, demand forecasting, and supplier negotiation needs an employee who can reconfigure these workflows into a dynamic, self-adjusting supply chain — while accounting for data flow, output alignment and business goals.
• Critical and lateral thinking prepare the workforce to anticipate complex risks, challenge assumptions, and evaluate the ripple effects of autonomous agent behavior.
  As intelligent agents increasingly interact across departments, systems and even partner ecosystems, employees will need to monitor unexpected outcomes, address conflicting agent objectives, and think across boundaries — not just within their own team, but across the organization and industry.
  • For example, in a logistics company using AI agents to manage route optimization, warehouse automation, and supplier communication, an employee might notice that an agent’s time-saving recommendation reduces delivery accuracy. Using critical thinking, the employee investigates the trade-off, reevaluates the logic behind agent decisions, and reprograms the workflow to better balance speed and reliability — preventing service disruptions that would have otherwise gone unchecked.

These strategic oversight skills will become non-negotiable as agents grow more capable and interconnected. But they won’t develop organically. Learning and development (L&D) leaders must take a proactive approach to upskilling by offering training that is relevant to employees’ roles and contextualized within the organization’s workflows.

The ability to creatively guide, problem-solve with, and think critically about intelligent agents will be a defining capability of tomorrow’s workforce — and it starts with how we train today.

3. Prioritize Soft Skills for the Agentic Era.

The social and emotional skills that have long defined workplace success will be even more critical in an agentic world. As AI agents become embedded across functions, every knowledge worker effectively becomes a “day-one manager,” responsible for overseeing their digital counterparts. That includes directing agent workflows, checking outputs, prioritizing tasks, and making judgment calls about when human intervention is needed.

This shift will demand more from employees cognitively — and interpersonally. Workers won’t just manage agents; they’ll collaborate with peers who are managing their own agent teams. Strong human-to-human communication will be essential for aligning goals, resolving discrepancies, and ensuring cohesion across blended human-AI systems.

Soft skills like collaboration, adaptability, emotional intelligence (EI) and conflict resolution continue to be indispensable. These are the capabilities that allow teams to work through challenges technology can’t solve — from interpersonal misunderstandings to misaligned agent behavior.

To stay competitive, organizations must evolve what and how they train. Prioritizing these human-centered skills can help determine which companies thrive as the agentic workforce takes shape. Those that act now will be positioned to unlock innovation, build trust across teams and lead with confidence in a rapidly transforming world.