Rethinking Technology and IT's Role in the Age of Agentic AI and Digital Labor

Generative AI, agentic AI, and other cutting-edge technologies are reshaping companies, pushing them to rethink their organizational structures and traditional roles. It's a wild ride, but one that's necessary to stay competitive in today's fast-paced world.

According to Accenture's latest report, "Rethinking IT operating models for the modern enterprise," current IT processes just won't cut it if businesses want to stay ahead of the technology curve. Sure, IT is still crucial, advising the C-suite and guiding tech deployments across the organization. But there's a pressing need for IT to shift away from the old-school operating models and embrace specialized services that deliver value at lightning speed.

When it comes to a technology-first focus across the C-suite, some key questions arise: The CEO might be asking, "How can I use technology to drive growth?" The CIO might be pondering, "How can I use technology to deliver value to the business?" And the CXO might be thinking, "How can I use technology to boost my function's productivity and efficiency?"

This shift in thinking will drive a move from the traditional model to a business technology-focused model. Imagine moving away from one big, dedicated IT team, led by the CIO, to smaller, more focused IT teams. These teams will take on strategic, high-value activities and help drive technology innovation strategy, while Gen AI takes care of those routine IT tasks.

Another big change will be in spending and budget allocations. Traditionally, CIOs have managed the enterprise IT budget. But in the new model, while the CIO still assesses and guides enterprise-wide IT investments, some tech investments are now governed and funded by the business units themselves.

Accenture's Framework for Rethinking Technology and IT

Accenture has identified a new framework for rethinking the role of technology and the evolving nature of IT in today's tech-led enterprise:

• Amplified Intelligence: This is all about how human and machine capabilities can drive new efficiencies and shake up how technology is managed and governed. It's a game-changer.
• Dynamic Skills: With new tools, service delivery models, and roles, there's a constant need for learning and upskilling. AI-augmented workflows let leaner IT teams focus on driving growth and cutting costs. Managed services from AI-enabled partners help automate key workloads, speed up service delivery, and fill knowledge gaps as workers retire or move on. The relationship between the CEO and tech leaders will evolve as tech strategy and business priorities start to align.
• Fluid Boundaries: As data and technology become more accessible across the business, organizations will get flatter, and cross-functional teams will become the norm. Gen AI tools will blur the lines between business and IT teams, leading to integrated business technology functions. The C-suite and board will need to become more tech-savvy to drive growth, and modernizing the data foundation will be crucial for getting the most out of new technologies.
• Adaptable Structures: AI is changing how employees are motivated and how teams are structured and work together. Incentives and a culture of trust will help normalize AI and drive its adoption. Thoughtful changes to employee culture will be key to building trust and adoption. And as delivery cycles get shorter, agile workflows and staffing models will need to adapt.

Amplified Intelligence

The future of digital labor and the impact of AI in business are at the heart of amplified intelligence. Accenture highlights three key takeaways:

• With breakthroughs in human and machine intelligence, business leaders need to up their game in terms of tech fluency and acumen. Amplified intelligence is all about people and machines working together to boost efficiency across the organization.
• AI agents and cognitive digital brains are set to revolutionize how technology supports IT teams. As tech improves, it'll start managing itself, working autonomously, and fixing issues without developers having to lift a finger.
• A culture of trust is essential for new technologies to deliver real business value. This drives the need for responsible AI at scale. Gen AI is changing the nature of IT, pushing CIOs to focus on responsible policies and governance models to build trust in the technology. And it's urging executives at all levels, including the CEO, to boost their technical fluency and acumen.

Cognitive Digital Brain

The rise of AI agents and the cognitive digital brain will reshape the IT function and its responsibilities. Accenture suggests that the most important feature of AI is its ability to learn.

A cognitive digital brain is a system that can understand—and increasingly act—at a higher level than ever before. It'll become the central nervous system for enterprise decision-making and continuous learning. These brains have four interconnected layers:

• Knowledge: Technologies like knowledge graphs and vector databases gather, organize, and structure data across the enterprise and beyond.
• Models: Large-scale gen AI models, and classic machine-learning and deep-learning models, handle critical thinking and reasoning tasks to turn data into action.
• Agents: These problem-solvers can tackle tasks with minimal human input, learn and grow over time, and make recommendations for planning and adaptation.
• Architecture: A comprehensive backbone turns AI experiments into enterprise solutions, democratizing intelligence across the organization in a repeatable way so solutions can be made once and reused.

Today, agentic AI isn't just answering questions—it's creating. Agents take action autonomously, and it's changing everything about how technology-led enterprises must design, deploy, and manage new technologies. We're building self-driving autonomous businesses using agentic AI where humans and machines work together to deliver customer success. But giving agency to software or machines to act will require a new currency: trust. Trust is the new currency of AI.

Accenture surveyed over 4,000 executives at some of the world's largest companies. A whopping 77% said they believe the benefits of AI are achievable only when AI is built on a foundation of trust. An even higher share of respondents (81%) said their organization's trust strategy must be well-defined and evolve in parallel with their technology strategy.

Governance models and policies must adapt to this reality. Research from Microsoft suggests that 75% of knowledge workers report using Gen AI tools, so it's crucial to ensure these people understand the technology they're using. Moving forward, IT teams will have the role of communicating to their organizations how Gen AI makes its decisions and how context influences its outputs.

Opportunities for Action

Accenture shared lessons on the reinvention of IT based on over 2,000 AI-led projects with clients around the globe. Here are the key actions leaders can take now:

1. Reimagine your business through technology: Connect every point of your IT strategy to the business agenda and create clear metrics that link every technology initiative to a specific business outcome. Identify where AI, data, and emerging technologies can deliver value throughout your organization. Double down on product-oriented teams and use these to create a new portfolio of digital products to drive revenue growth.
2. Flatten hierarchies with a tech-adept leadership and workforce: Create new, hybrid roles that combine business and technical expertise. Build AI and automation capabilities across the organization, underpinned with an ethical framework for AI deployment. Establish technology fluency as a core leadership competency at board and C-suite levels. Develop tech and AI literacy programs for your workforce.
3. Accelerate AI adoption with partnerships: Build a strategic technology partner ecosystem with complementary capabilities that fill talent and technology gaps. Implement a clear partner framework that will manage partner relationships and measure value. Create platform teams focused on scaling priority initiatives using AI. Create joint innovation programs with key partners, and use their capabilities to scale your innovations rapidly.

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