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As more companies embrace artificial intelligence, some are taking it to the next level by introducing AI agents that work on an employees’ behalf or alongside them. These agents are helping with tasks like writing code, responding to customer service queries, conducting research, checking sales leads and crafting marketing materials.
The agents are “becoming an extension of the workforce,” said Dan Priest, chief AI officer at PwC.
Companies, including Salesforce, eBay and Microsoft, have announced their use of AI agents, and more organizations plan to follow. According to the January 2025 edition of KPMG’s AI Quarterly Pulse Survey, more than 50% of companies are exploring AI agents for administrative duties, call center tasks and to create business materials — and 37% are piloting the technology.
Yet the question remains: Who will oversee the quality of these AI agents' work? Some experts say HR may be handed this responsibility, prompting a review of the workforce planning strategy to incorporate these agents into the workforce.
HR’s Role in Integrating AI Agents
An AI agent functions as a “multi-tasking, autonomous kind of thinking entity,” explained Amanda Welsh, associate dean of workforce and economic development at Northeastern University, who recently co-authored a study on AI and talent management.
Instead of simply querying the AI for information, AI agents can be given a detailed goal, such as designing an app, and perform the tasks, such as design or testing, within parameters given to achieve that goal, Priest said.
Despite this autonomy, humans play an integral role in the management and oversight of AI agents and their work, and PwC’s 2025 AI Business Predictions forecasts HR will be increasingly involved in the process, starting with ensuring the company’s workforce strategy blends AI and human workers appropriately.
That’s because workflows and job functions will change as “people orchestrate teams of agents, assigning tasks and then improving and stitching together the results,” the report explained.
“HR teams are going to be very busy,” Priest added. HR need to think about what new roles will be needed, the required skill sets for those roles, how performance will be measured and how employees will be rewarded.
Measuring these agents’ return on investment is also important, and HR may be asked to weigh the costs of the technology, training of humans and other aspects of incorporating AI agents, Welsh said. This remains a challenge, as just 31% of business leaders expect to be able to measure their AI ROI in the next six months but face investor pressure to do so, according to KPMG.
4 Tips to Establish an AI Agent Management Strategy
While AI agents can work independently to achieve a goal, human-driven checks and balances are needed to assess what agents produce. But doing this successfully requires getting employees used to the idea of machines taking on tasks and contributing to a project or goal, said Davi Ottenheimer, vice president of trust and digital ethics at Inrupt.
This will require changes within an organization, Priest added. “You have to find people where they are and bring them all along on this organizational change management journey.”
Here are four tips to help you strategically manage your AI agents:
1. Develop a Transparent Process
When creating an app, for example, an organization may use multiple AI agents for each aspect of the project — one agent may handle design while others generate code and test the app. Priest said each agent may be associated with a human who oversees their work, and a human employee may oversee multiple agents. The entire project could ultimately involve many agents and many human managers.
This can be complex and will likely lead to workflow disruptions, which may be difficult for some to accept or adjust to, Ottenheimer said. To streamline it all, companies need to establish transparent AI policies, procedures and hierarchies for how AI agents and their managers will work together.
“You have to demonstrate to your employees how [AI] can help them but not deceive them on how it’s going to shape your company going forward,” said Matthew Call, an associate professor of management at Texas A&M University.
AI governance has been a challenge for organizations, Call said. His research has shown a “fragmented governance landscape,” with information technology, HR and security departments playing a role. However, some company leaders still aren’t sure who should handle AI governance in their organization. That’s an important question to address from the onset.
Also, the AI agent-management plan should include privacy and security considerations, including how to identify and respond to vulnerabilities, Ottenheimer said. Data privacy and cybersecurity are some of the biggest concerns leaders have about adopting AI strategies in 2025, according to KPMG’s report.
2. Establish Performance Metrics
“There’s a temptation once the bot starts doing the work to let it do the work without your input,” Call said, but clear guidelines are needed to “spot check and make sure that things are not going amiss.”
Set key performance indicators and other metrics for AI agents based on their job functions, so the employees managing them know how to measure their output, Ottenheimer said.
HR also needs KPIs to measure the human managers who manage AI agents, too. These metrics must align with the company’s overall business metrics to be able to demonstrate a business benefit, Priest said.
Companies should also track and be transparent about how productivity levels are shifting, as this will reveal how the organization can benefit from freed-up time in the workforce.
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3. Retrain Employees
As companies introduce and expand AI agents, employees’ jobs will shift from performing specific tasks to overseeing the agents now doing them.This means some — and possibly many — employees will need to be retrained for these new roles.
“You need people who are really skilled at manning the bots and keeping the quality control, making sure the prompts and algorithms are doing an effective job,” Call said.
These employees will benefit from learning general management skills, but they will also need to understand an AI agent’s role and work goals. This may ultimately benefit the most knowledgeable workers, Call said.
“Since you have the expertise, you know how to quality check it quickly, and you can give it more prompts and have it work with you, get to know your style of thinking, your style of writing,” he explained.
4. Rethink the Skills Needed for the Future
HR will also need to reconsider the skill requirements for future employees, as AI agents play more essential roles in organizations. These skills will likely include prompt engineering to get the results you need from AI agents and cognitive science to understand how AI works in the context of human psychology, Priest said.
Data management, engineering and science are other valuable skills, as companies work to organize their data to prepare for using AI agents, he added.
Social and emotional intelligence are necessary, too, Call said. “You’re always going to need human resources professionals who understand and can articulate the business impact that people have.”
Ultimately, organizations need to get ahead of the changes that AI agents will bring. “They need to start building those training programs. They have to start investing in reward systems that incentivize people going through this change journey with HR and their business leaders. There's a lot of work that they need to be preparing for right now,” Priest said.
Read more on the intersection of HR and AI:
- How HR Leaders Bridge Human Potential and AI Innovation — Four ways HR leaders can rise up to the challenge and integrate technology and the employee experience.
- 3 Business Cases for Using AI Within Talent Management — The application of AI in talent management can deliver real business value, provided it is effectively implemented and the risks are proactively managed.
- 2025 Predictions for AI in Work Tech — HR leaders need to understand how AI can unlock new possibilities. Here we explore some of the most promising applications.
