Why the Best Strategy for the Agentic Era Is a Human One

As organisations race to integrate agentic AI into the workplace, experts are warning that the real challenge is no longer technological, it is organisational.

| Written by Riya Malhotra

On International HR Day, workforce and AI transformation leaders are urging businesses to move beyond viewing AI solely as a productivity tool and instead focus on the strategic workforce decisions that will define whether the technology creates long-term value or long-term disruption.

With AI agents becoming increasingly capable of handling complex workflows autonomously, many organisations are prioritising speed, efficiency, and automation. However, industry leaders argue that the companies seeing the strongest outcomes are those redesigning work proactively, rather than reacting to disruption after it arrives.

According to Mohammed Alkhotani, Middle East General Manager and Senior Vice President at Salesforce, the true opportunity of AI lies not in replacing people, but in redefining the value of human work.

“The conversation around AI often begins with productivity, but the bigger opportunity is really about how work, and the workforce, evolves,” Alkhotani said.

AI has the ability to create significant capacity within organisations, helping teams move faster, operate at greater scale, and rethink how work gets done. But the real value is not simply in efficiency, it is in what organisations choose to do with that capacity.

He noted that the most forward-thinking organisations are using AI to create more space for employees to focus on higher-value responsibilities, work requiring judgment, creativity, innovation, and relationship-building.

“That is where AI moves from being a technology conversation to becoming a leadership conversation. And this is where HR has a critical role to play,” he added.

Alkhotani highlighted that digital transformation has historically been accompanied by uncertainty, particularly when employees are unclear about how change will affect their roles or career prospects. Yet, if managed effectively, the rise of AI could unlock one of the biggest workforce opportunities in decades.

“It opens the door to rethinking how work is designed, building new skills, redeploying talent into more meaningful, higher-value roles, and preparing the next generation of employees for a very different world of work,” he said.

The urgency around workforce readiness is increasing globally. According to the World Economic Forum, nearly 39% of existing skill sets are expected to become transformed or outdated by 2030, making reskilling and AI fluency immediate business priorities.

Alkhotani also pointed to the growing emphasis on workforce capability across the Middle East, particularly in markets such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, where national economic agendas increasingly place digital capability and human potential at the centre of long-term growth strategies.

For leaders, that means looking beyond technology deployment and asking a bigger question of how do we bring our people with us?

Industry experts say that as agentic AI adoption accelerates, HR leaders will play a defining role in shaping how organisations transition into this next phase of work. Businesses investing in reskilling, talent redeployment, and employee support are expected to emerge more agile and future-ready than those focusing solely on automation.

“The future of work will not be defined by AI alone, but by leaders who use it to unlock human potential,” Alkhotani concluded.