After the Covid times when physical employees were forced to work virtually, the IT world was slowly getting back to “Work From Office” culture. But this transition back to the legacy system is likely to get a jolt from the development of the “AI agents” who may replace the physical workers in due course.
Initially the attempt is to improve productivity by shifting some routine tasks to the AI agents so that humans would focus more on tasks requiring human oversight. But slowly a major part of the corporate wok are likely to be shifted to this AI Agentic Workforce and the composition of the workforce is likely to change sustantially.
Microsoft is preparing to introduce autonomous AI agents shortly These AI-powered virtual employees are designed to handle tasks like client queries, sales lead identification, and supply chain management, as the tech industry looks to prove the practical value of AI advancements. The company plans to release 10 pre-configured AI agents designed for specific functions, such as customer service and supply chain tasks.
Google simultaneously is working on AI Co-Scientist project which is considered as a prototype of the future enterprise AI.
We have already heard of Mika the AI CEO of a Polish Liquor company Now several companies are developing Agentic AI workforce to replace their human work force. Open AI’s Sam Altman has predicted that 2025 will see the growth of AI agents as members of a workforce.
Now AI-CEO.org has introduced a AI-CHRO product for workforce management for the Agentic Future. AI-CHRO is claimed to be capable of autonomously hiring, managing, evaluating and if necessary terminating Agentic Agents.
We are therefore entering a new era of AI-driven agents that take on knowledge work, decision-making, and even innovation, much like human employees. Such Virtual employees may think like a team and act as a Knowledge generator and not just as an Optimizer.
These developments are likely to result in a quiet erosion of entry level human workers and make the students coming out of our colleges based on the 4 year old syllabus unsuitable for corporate jobs. While some progressive colleges and intelligent students may be able to upgrade themselves quickly, a majority of students will find it frustrating and could land into serious psychological problems.
It is time to reflect where his is going tot end up in terms of regulatory frameworks such as the DPDPA.
Currently, we are treating AI as an agent of a human handler who is legally liable for regulatory implications. It is possible that the work is performed by an AI worker, supervised by an AI-Supervisor and managed by an AI-CEO. It is also possible that some innovative Board may also appoint an AI Agentic DPO and challenge the regulators.
In all such cases, the real human who has to take the regulatory liability is the Board of Directors itself. If they want to delegate the responsibility, they need to designate a “Human Handler” for the AI-CEO or AI-DPO.
If necessary, the Government of India should clarify that “AI remains a Tool and a Handler of AI is always liable for the actions of the AI”.
In practice, the AI tool may be developed by one company and licensed to another company. Hence there will be a handler-developer and a handler-user who have o build a contractual relationship to define inter-se liability.
In terms of DPDPA and DGPSI framework, we shall consider that AIs are represented by their handlers and both handler-developer and handler-user (Or their companies) are considered “Joint Data Fiduciaries”.
In the meantime, Naavi invites “Handler-Users” to contact if their Handler-AI combination has to be certified for C.DPO.DA.
Naavi
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