“CIO Perspectives” is a white paper series by Mark Settle that explores top-of-mind technical issues confronting today’s CIOs and IT leaders. Mark is a seven-time CIO, a three-time CIO 100 award winner, and a two-time book author. His most recent book is Truth from the Valley, A Practical Primer on IT Management for the Next Decade.
The agentic workplace of the future will bear very little resemblance to the workplace of today. AI agents will numerically outnumber and collectively outthink their human co-workers. Humans will function as ‘agent wranglers’, serving as garage mechanics that keep the agents running properly or as dispute counselors resolving conflicting interactions among multiple agents.
Some humans will continue to do true knowledge work. They will perform tasks requiring talents that the agents lack such as creativity, nonlinear thinking, critical analysis, complex reasoning, business intuition and emotional intelligence. Effective use of their time and attention in ways that maximize the use of these unique aptitudes will be key to their job security and long term professional success.
This paper presents a provocative investment thesis, namely that AI can be used to ensure the survival of human knowledge workers after many of the work activities they currently perform have been fully automated. It specifically suggests that AI can be used to develop personalized task management tools that optimize the use of an individual’s time-on-the-job based upon their knowledge, skills, experience and work habits.
Personalized productivity tools will be enabled by a new generation of domain-specific small language models and AI-capable work devices (laptops and PCs). These emerging technologies will ensure that information concerning an individual’s on-the-job behavior is retained on their dedicated work devices and accessible only by them, preserving the privacy necessary to allow the personalization of their customized time management tools.
The ability to materially improve the productivity of human workers in the agentic workplace of the future represents a major investment opportunity.
