Electrify your business with agents
Talk of an “AI bubble” reflects a lack of understanding of the true potential of AI agents and of the work required to scale them. Yet AI is becoming as essential a necessity for businesses as electricity, Juha Kujala argues.
When the first electric light in Finland and in the entire Nordic region was switched on in the weaving hall of the Finlayson factory in Tampere in March 1882, the new invention inspired delight, but also suspicion. Electricity was considered dangerous, and some even feared that electric light would cause insomnia and health problems.
The potential of electricity was also downplayed. No one imagined that it would be of any real use to businesses or to ordinary people. When at first there was little use for it, the electricity hype began to look like an electricity bubble.
However, by the early decades of the 20th century, industry was being electrified and the power grid was spreading into homes across Europe. Electricity changed quickly from a wondrous novelty into a necessity for business and everyday life.
AI is now evoking similar reactions to the ones electricity triggered in the late 19th century. Alongside excitement, both justified and unfounded fears are simmering about everything that could go wrong with the adoption of AI. Many have also been disappointed by the limitations of various AI services and have concluded that, in the end, AI offers little practical value. As a result, people have started talking about an AI bubble.
In reality, when it comes to using AI in business, we have only seen the first steps, and many have yet to grasp the technology’s true potential. Deploying a single AI agent is like installing a single electric light: a nice novelty with relatively limited value. The real transformation is just around the corner, as pioneers are now building systems similar to AI power grids, scaling agents into the hundreds and thousands.
From agent-assisted to agentic enterprise
According to a frequently repeated insight, people tend to overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies – and underestimate their long-term effects. What is also easily forgotten is that change does not happen by itself. It must be led with determination.
The electrification of industry and cities required extensive planning and hard, practical work. Building agent-based “power grids” for business is at least as great an undertaking.
To deploy agents at scale, we need to set standards for how they operate and communicate with one another. Work is also required for defining how agents are trained to form teams and how they are orchestrated to operate with increasing autonomy.
The result of this work is an organisation that is no longer merely AI-assisted. In the vision of the Agentic Enterprise, the majority of knowledge work is agentised, and the human role is to lead the business and the agents themselves. The productivity revolution arises from the fact that an organisation’s output is no longer tied to the number of hours worked by people.
Four lessons from the pioneers
A market study we conducted this autumn showed that Nordic companies have taken significant steps in adopting AI. The study highlights four lessons from pioneering organisations:
- Build the capability to scale up the number of AI agents
Deploying hundreds or thousands of agents without the structures that connect them is like trying to plug all the machines in an entire factory hall into a single extension lead. Managing and scaling agents calls for a new kind of leadership and technology.
2. Create a culture of possibilities
The potential of agents cannot be fully understood on paper. Pioneers discover new opportunities by encouraging even bold, practical implementations.
3. Turn AI into a digital workforce
AI is not an assistant for individuals but a worker in its own right. Instead of treating it as a mere helper, make it part of your workforce and use AI to change how you create customer value.
4. Lead an AI transformation across the organisation
Industry would never have been electrified if companies interested in electricity had focused solely on the technology of light bulbs. What mattered more was finding ways to renew business by harnessing electricity. Now, what matters is rebuilding business around Agentic AI.
Only 22 per cent of the companies participating in our study say that AI has led to significant changes in how their organisation operates. In 52 per cent of companies, adoption has so far meant only isolated experiments. That means there is still much work ahead to scale AI and to realise its true productivity benefits.
Download the market study “What successful AI-first organisations look like” and see where your company stands.
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