The conversation about AI and the workforce has been dominated by one word: replacement. However, the true story of this technological revolution isn’t about replacement, but about redeployment – a fundamental shift in how we orchestrate human talent and intelligent technology.
At a time when organisations face rising expectations and increased complexity, we are entering the era of the agentic enterprise: where humans and AI agents collaborate seamlessly as a single, intelligent workforce.
These AI agents are not mere assistants; they are autonomous partners that can reason, decide, and act, freeing human teams from routine work to focus on what they do best: strategy, innovation, and building deep customer relationships.
This collaboration marks the beginning of the great redeployment, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to elevate the nature of work itself.
Salesforce research indicates that 81% of HR leaders plan to reskill employees for better job opportunities in the digital labour era.
Success, however, is not guaranteed. It requires a deliberate two-pronged approach: transforming our teams’ skills and cultivating an agentic mindset across the organisation.
From task-based to outcome-driven roles
For decades, we’ve defined jobs by the tasks they entail. The great redeployment demands we shift this focus to outcomes. As AI agents take on more automatable tasks – from data analysis to code generation – the most valuable human skills will be those that AI cannot replicate.
The UN’s AI Impact Quadrant confirms what leaders must now accept: reskilling, upskilling, and cross-skilling are the most critical imperatives for building a future-proof workforce.
We must equip employees in roles susceptible to automation with entirely new capabilities. But more importantly, we must uniquely enhance human skills across the entire workforce. Critical thinking, strategic oversight, and empathetic leadership are no longer “soft skills”; they are the core drivers of value in an agentic enterprise.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report for 2025, resilience, flexibility, and agility; resource management; and programming and technological literacy will differentiate growing from declining jobs.
The crucial differentiator for talent will be the ability to distinguish between a job (the strategic “why”) and its associated tasks (the tactical “how”). The most successful professionals will own the outcome of their job, maintaining full accountability while skillfully deploying AI agents to execute the necessary tasks with speed and precision. This is the new benchmark for performance.
Cultivating the agentic mindset
Skills are only half the equation. Without a culture that embraces change, even the best-skilled workforce will falter.
The latest Slack Workforce Index reveals that employees who actively use AI are not only 64% more productive but also 81% more satisfied with their jobs. This isn’t just a productivity hack; it’s a leading indicator of a cultural shift.
Fostering this mindset begins with leadership. Leaders must champion a culture of continuous learning and psychological safety, where curiosity is encouraged and experimentation is rewarded.
This means starting with small, manageable AI integrations to build confidence and demonstrating the value of human-agent collaboration through clear communication and inclusive engagement. When teams feel supported and see the purpose behind the technology, they are empowered to innovate.
The goal of the great redeployment is not to build a workforce of AI operators, but a workforce of innovators, strategists, and relationship-builders, amplified by AI.
By focusing on both skills and mindset, we can unlock the limitless potential of this new era and build enterprises that are not just more efficient, but more human.
- Ursula Fear, Senior Talent Program Manager at Salesforce
