In the last few days, you may have learned about the new space occupied by AI agents. They are already at work, within different companies, making our lives easier at home, and now, they would also be on social media like this, alone, without human mediation.
I don’t know how you felt about this news, but there were a lot of people worried about what could be the beginning of a “machine revolution”. And that’s not exactly a surprise.
After all, whatever happens, when news about artificial intelligence appears, curiosity about the news is accompanied by fear. The discussion about job loss returns and new insecurities appear, such as the idea that unsupervised networked agents could make dangerous decisions, make large-scale errors and compromise the security of sensitive data.
For those who thought of all this when hearing about this scene from a fictional film, the feeling must now be one of relief. According to an article published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Moltbook social network actually had human involvement behind the posts. In other words, the scenario in which autonomous agents interact online on their own is not exactly a reality yet.
However, the feeling that this story provoked is, yes, very real. And, when it dominates us, it can reduce our capacity for action and strategic decisions.
The paralyzing future
Every now and then, I notice that news about innovation, especially those related to AI agents, causes a type of slowness.
This is not about inertia. What happens, in fact, is that, instead of staying in place, there is a reaction, but an almost automatic and somewhat timid reaction.
The company even takes some steps, discusses the current transformation, enters into debates about the future of work and may even adopt some tool, but it often stops there. In other words, there is movement, but we need to move forward with intentionality in the process of structural transformation.
After all, adopting these synthetic co-workers does not just mean changing productivity or the division of tasks: this new configuration inevitably changes organizational culture.
Not that values should change, but it is natural (and more than that, inevitable) that habits, practices and expectations about autonomy, responsibility, risk, productivity and decision-making evolve along with technology. When agents start to perform part of the tasks, what is expected of a person, an area, the processes, the organizational structure and, consequently, the business model itself, changes.
There is (or should be) a change that goes far beyond reviewing evaluation criteria or new productivity parameters. I’m talking about a transformation in the logic of how work is divided, in people’s ability to adapt to their new journey partners, in the redistribution of responsibilities, in the pace of decisions, in the degree of supervision required, in the relationship with error and in the profile of strategic skills.
It also involves rethinking how the organization creates value, how it coordinates hybrid teams (human and digital), how it establishes bonds of trust and how it guarantees governance when decisions become partially automated. Virtually every corporate process and practice will need to be redesigned and reintroduced.
This all requires change management that goes beyond the operational implementation of tools. It requires organizational redesign, review of critical flows, adaptation of leadership models, in short, a broad view of everything that needs to be adjusted.
The decision to drive change
I know, it’s a lot. The leadership’s list of emergencies seems to have no end and the speed with which it increases gives some anguish.
However, even though I completely understand the sentiment, I need to warn you that by adopting AI agents, your organization will change one way or another. It is natural for this to happen and it is important not only that strategic priorities are revisited, but also that structural decisions are made consciously. I’m referring to an attitude of facing this reality with attitude instead of leaving everything for later.
What is within our power is to manage this process.
Even because ignoring transformation does not prevent it from happening, it only transfers control to external factors: to competition that advances faster, to the market that redefines standards or to crises that force transformations in fear and rush.
Therefore, change management requires commitment and discipline to debate not once, but constantly issues such as:
- In which areas and activities agents really add value, and in which they represent more risk than gain;
- Which processes need to be redesigned so that the technology scales safely, without generating bottlenecks or chain errors;
- How efficiently people can work with their agents;
- Which decisions can be partially automated and which must remain under human responsibility;
- How to guarantee governance, traceability and accountability when agents start to deal with sensitive data;
- Which skills are no longer central and which become strategic for the business;
- How to prepare leaders to manage hybrid teams, in which performance involves people and systems;
- How organizational culture needs to evolve to deal with experimentation, controlled error and continuous learning.
If, like the social media controversy for AI, this change management is causing some fear, my message to you is that butterflies are part of it. It is normal to feel insecure in the face of the unknown and question the impact of decisions that affect people, structures and results.
And, truth be told, we are fully capable of acting even with a slight shiver running through our bodies. After all, courage, in the corporate environment, is not the absence of fear. It is the ability to decide despite it.
