In this episode of Futurise, Rob Price is joined by Professor Michael Wade of IMD Business School to explore how organisations are managing the rapid and exponential emergence and growth of Agentic AI. They also delve into what this means for enterprise decision-making, workforce capability and risk management.
Professor Michael Wade notes that while interest in agentic AI has increased tremendously over the past year or so, most organisations remain in an experimental or early operational phase. Many of them are running pilots, demonstrations, or proof of concepts. However, surprisingly, very few agentic systems are performing end-to-end, mission-critical work at scale. The main reason is uncertainty about autonomy, control and accountability.
Agentic AI and Executive Decision-Making Under Uncertainty
A central theme of the conversation is the tension executives face between the fear of missing out on productivity gains and the fear of making mistakes by delegating responsibility to autonomous agents too quickly. While the promise of efficiency, cost reduction, and speed is enticing, leaders are more worried about reliability, governance, and what happens when agents behave confidently but not competently.
Drawing on this work in digital responsibility, Professor Michael Wade highlights growing questions around security, intellectual property, regulation and organisational dependence on agentic systems. He introduces the IMD AI Risk Clock. This tracks risk based on three factors:
- Technological sophistication
- Autonomy
- Connection to real-world systems
The rise of agentic AI significantly increases risk by design, as autonomy removes humans from the loop.
Enterprise AI Risk, Skills and the Future Workforce
Beyond technology, the discussion moves to the long-term impact on workforce skills and expertise. Rather than focusing on job displacement, Professor Michael Wade raises concerns about organisational de-skilling for employees. As agents take on more cognitive work, organisations risk losing deep institutional knowledge and human judgement among their workforce if they neglect capability development.
The future workforce, he suggests, will shift from relying on narrow specialists to favouring adaptable, multi-disciplinary professionals who can oversee and collaborate with agentic systems. This shift means that continuous learning and capability building will be essential not only for keeping up with automation but also for ensuring organisations retain and grow their expertise rather than losing it.
The episode concludes on a balanced note. While risks are real, Professor Michael Wade remains optimistic about the potential of agentic AI. According to him, this will improve quality, creativity, healthcare and environmental outcomes. All this will become possible only if the organisations adopt it thoughtfully, with focus, governance and human oversight at the core.
