1、People&Organizational Performance PracticeThe future of work is agenticThe digital workforce is happening.Heres what it may look like when humans are working side by side with AI agentsand how to prepare now for this surprisingly near-term eventuality.June 2025Think about your org chart.Now imagine

2、it features both your current colleagueshumans,if youre like most of usand AI agents.Thats not science fiction;its happeningand its happening relatively quickly,according to McKinsey Senior Partner Jorge Amar.In this episode of McKinsey Talks Talent,Jorge joins McKinsey talent leaders Brooke Weddlea

3、nd Bryan Hancockand Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly to talk about what these AI agents are,how theyre being used,and how leaders can prepare now for the workforce of the not-too-distant future.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.From generative to agentic AILucia

4、Rahilly:Jorge,welcome to McKinsey Talks Talent.Jorge Amar:Thank you very much.Excited to be here.Lucia Rahilly:Jorge,there was a great little piece in The Wall Street Journal called“Everyones talking about AI agents.Barely anyone knows what they are.”What exactly do we mean when we talk about agenti

5、c AI?Jorge Amar:Ill start where I think most people still are,which is generative AI.Gen AI is mostly a reactive type of AI focused on generating creative content,triggered by a prompt or an instruction from an individual.Now if we continue the evolution of AI into agentic,we start to come to a very

6、 different reality.The first difference is were talking about AI that is not only generating content.It is executing on a task,on a mandate,on a particular instruction.An AI agent is perceiving reality based on its training.It then decides,applies judgment,and executes something.And that execution t