Running a business is hard—trust me, I know. But the challenges I’m facing now, 20 years in, are different from the ones I struggled with early on, when I was attempting to launch a startup around working a 9 to 5 job. Back then, I was balancing building my product with reading a secondhand copy of “Marketing for Dummies,” trying to turn what I thought was a good idea into a viable, profitable business.
These days, the issues that keep me up at night are more existential: What is the next big thing? What’s the most impactful thing I should be working on? What skills do I need to add to my teams, and how can we recruit top-tier talent?
Like many other leaders out there, a lot of this rumination revolves around AI. According to research from McKinsey, 92 percent of executives said they expect to boost spending around AI in the next three years, and 55 percent say they plan to increase their investments by at least 10 percent from current levels.
At my company, Jotform, we’ve already seen our operations improve thanks to AI innovations. Now, as AI agents dominate conversations throughout the tech world, I’ve been thinking about how these new systems can ease the pain points that have plagued leaders since the dawn of enterprise.
Innovation
A healthy business should be constantly innovating, but that’s easier said than done. In a company’s early years, innovation is a given, but as it grows, it becomes easier to stagnate. Once-lean startups get set in their ways and become less nimble. Established businesses have more to lose, and fear of failure can be paralyzing.
Any company that hopes to survive in the long term needs to constantly reassess the needs of its customers, adjusting and updating its products and services. The longer it goes without reevaluating, the harder it will be to pivot when need be—just look at what happened to Blockbuster. The once ubiquitous video rental retailer has gone extinct because it failed to appreciate changing viewer habits before it was too late.
Agents can help drive innovation in two ways: The first is by simplifying draining, routine tasks, giving teams needed time and space to flex their creative muscles. Whether you need assistance writing coding or want to automate your social media strategy, agents are ready to take these tasks off your plate.
Agents’ utility doesn’t end there—they can also assist with innovation itself. Tools like DeepResearch can conduct extensive, academic-level research on a given topic, tailoring its final report to your specifications. If Blockbuster could go back in time, its executives may have asked an agent to collate a report on viewership trends, emerging technology and evolving consumer habits, gaining the insight they needed to save themselves before Netflix stole the show.
Recruiting Talent
Every leader wants to attract the best possible employees, and most find it challenging—according to one study by Manpower Group, four in five employers globally report difficulty in finding the skilled talent they need. Organizations are forced to compete for top-tier recruits, and a lengthy search for the right person means key positions end up sitting vacant.
Recruitment has already embraced AI in a number of ways, from resume-parsing to automated candidate matching, helping recruiters make cohesive, data-driven hiring decisions faster. These are helpful developments—but they’re nothing compared to ways that agents can supercharge the recruitment process.
Agents can complete complex, multi-step processes from end-to-end. When it comes to hiring, that means their first order of business is to source candidates, combing through talent databases and matching profiles to job descriptions. But even after they’ve compiled a robust list of qualified candidates, their work isn’t over—their next step is to send out interview requests, schedule phone screens, and field candidate questions— all in a fraction of the time it takes human recruiters to do the same.
Why does this matter? Because when it comes to hiring, time is of the essence. You don’t want to lose a great candidate to a competitor because you were too bogged down to schedule a timely interview.
Improved Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is the glue that holds companies together. It defines shared values, guides behavior, and fosters a sense of belonging that motivates people to do their best work.
But culture can erode when employees feel disconnected from each other, don’t have clear direction, or spend so much time on mundane tasks that they lose sight of the bigger picture.
Conventional wisdom says that organizational culture comes from the top—leaders are responsible for making sure teams understand company values, and how their work is helping to advance its larger goals.
That remains true, and it probably always will. But agents can help support a thriving culture in several ways. An Onboarding Agent, for example, can offer personalized help for fresh hires still working to make sense of the organization’s work dynamics, offering everything from guidance on using unfamiliar tools to setting up introductory meetings with other staff members. Established employees can benefit from agents that collect feedback, generate insights into problem areas, and create action plans to improve team cohesion or learning opportunities for professional development.
Instead of replacing human connection, well-implemented AI agents can ease operational burdens, freeing leaders and employees alike to focus on collaborative brainstorming, mentoring, and fostering the collective energy that keeps a culture strong.
There will always be challenges that come with leading a business. AI agents, however, can lighten the load, freeing executives to focus on the bigger picture and cultivate a thriving-future focused organization. When paired with clear direction and strong leadership, AI agents have the potential to help businesses not just keep pace with change, but lead it.
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