Major changes in how C-suite roles are structured are needed in response to the rise of AI, the chief executive of Accenture UK and Ireland has said, with HR directors taking the lead.

Matt Prebble said HR directors will have to take responsibility for managing AI agents alongside human staff in future. He told the Financial Times: “When you consider running the organisation of the future, you’re going to think about how do I set up the organisation so that I’m managing people, but also agents and AI and technology?”

Integrating AI agents required careful management, he added.

“For the small number of clients that have managed to get an authentic agentic AI working in their organisation … you have to onboard agents, you have to train the agents … that could be the HR director’s job.”

Prebble said AI was prompting boards to reconsider how to reshape their workforces. “We’re on the early part of that journey to understand how does the organisation structure of leadership really change,” he said.

He added: “As AI takes on more execution, the COO role is evolving, for example”, he said, with “operational leaders increasingly accountable for AI-driven outcomes”.

To mirror the way its clients operate and buy services, Accenture itself has shifted away from its traditional division between consulting, technology and other business lines towards broader “reinvention” projects.

Accenture has seen its market value and share price fall sharply, partly because of uncertainty over whether AI would replace many of the tasks carried out by its 786,000-person workforce and force it to slash prices.

Prebble rejected suggestions that Accenture was particularly exposed to the problem because of its large number of junior staff or that it had not done enough to address the threat. He emphasised that Accenture planned to increase UK graduate recruitment by 40% next year.

“This perception that you don’t need the bottom of the pyramid, you don’t need the next generation coming through, is misplaced. That’s based on a narrow view of productivity,” he said.

Ben White, executive consultant at learning and development firm OnTrack International, in response to Prebble’s comments, said most organisations were still struggling at basic AI adoption. “There is lots of shadow AI use where people are using AI to improve their individual effectiveness,” he said.

“But building and working alongside AI as a company, function or team is some way off. This comes down to people’s work identity being challenged. What value do I or will I add? Using AI may give people back more time to connect but what if people’s work identity is not about connecting but doing a task and going home?”

He added: “One of the reasons that AI adoption and integration has failed to date is that it is seen an ‘IT thing’ or it’s to do with skills and knowledge, so it must be HR or L&D. AI is different. I like the idea of the augmented worker where their abilities are enhanced by AI within the controlled environment of the workplace and we are all on similar journeys.”

White said the EU’s AI Act would push firms to show that employees had AI literacy. “This will not be solved by the usual e-learning package that people just click through and take a test at the end as a tick box,” he said. “This also has to be role specific. Different roles will have different learner journeys and different use cases.”

Meanwhile, research from recruiter Robert Walters and payments platform Native Teams has suggested demand for AI professionals in the UK could reach almost 300,000 by 2028, against an estimated domestic supply of just 137,000.

 

L&D job opportunities on Personnel Today

Browse more L&D jobs

The post Accenture: HR must take the lead on AI agents appeared first on Personnel Today.

Source: www.personneltoday.com

Employment News