For HR, agentic AI is not merely a technology upgrade—it requires a fundamental reimagining of the function’s role. Agentic AI has potential to reshape work itself, blurring the line between human and digital labor into “hybrid” co-intelligent teams and calling for a rethink of the entire “talent” system. HR leaders are uniquely positioned to architect this future while safeguarding human experience, embedding AI deeply into workforce strategy and operations and navigating the human choices that maintain trust.
In a hybrid talent system, humans and AI agents collaborate seamlessly to drive organizational outcomes. This transformation elevates HR from a traditional support function to an enterprise integrator of business strategy, technology, and human capital. It entrusts HR with reshaping the very fabric of work, talent design, culture, and operations for an AI-first world. To succeed, HR will need to reimagine the core products and services it provides, using AI to deliver even greater business impact.
- Strategic workforce planning: With agentic AI, static approaches to workforce planning based on human roles will give way to dynamic, activity-based models that specify which tasks are performed by humans, AI agents, or hybrid teams. HR should reimagine workflows “AI first,” reshaping human activities and roles to optimize value from human-agent collaboration. With real-time data and analytics, HR can forecast workforce needs, identify existing and adjacent skills, and redeploy talent dynamically, supporting a more responsive, agile, and value-focused workforce plan to keep pace with change.
- Organizational design: Future-ready structures will balance speed and accountability, integrating purposeful trade-offs between human and digital labor to maximize value while preserving human judgment and responsibility. Structures should go beyond traditional boxes and lines to focus on outcomes and delivering impact. Agentic AI has potential to enable advanced capabilities—such as scenario modeling, workforce insights, and culture monitoring—allowing HR to partner with other business leaders to design the structures and operating models of tomorrow.
- People attraction: Hiring people into static roles based on experience no longer suffices. Instead, HR should prioritize meta-skills such as learning agility, adaptability, and capability to co-create in human/agent teaming models. Building, buying, and borrowing strategies now include both people and technology implications. Location is becoming a less constraining factor, and the entire talent attraction process is growing more seamless and led by hiring managers. Technology will enable accelerated and broadened sourcing, more rapid and unbiased screening, and more; it can improve recruiter, hiring manager, and candidate experiences.
- Hybrid learning and development: Learning and working will merge in the agentic world. Learning will happen continuously and contextually, as AI coaches and co-learner models deliver personalized, adaptive upskilling in the flow of work. Apprenticeship programs will be reinvented to facilitate collaboration between humans and agents, and experienced and more junior humans, promoting continuous feedback loops and accelerated development. Agentic AI can tailor learning journeys based on individual performance and evolving skill requirements, ensuring workforce readiness amid rapid technological change. Importantly, managers will no longer coach just human team members but help supervise, evaluate, and develop agents.
- Talent management: Career pathing will transition from hierarchical, linear models to fluid, outcome-focused trajectories, aligned with hybrid organizational requirements and hyper-personalized to individual employee needs (in service of business outcomes). New frameworks for performance management and incentive structures will reward outcomes, effective collaboration with AI agents, and innovation in hybrid workflows. Agentic AI systems can help employees to define better goals and career plans, while helping HR create more tailored performance approaches and data-informed succession plans.
- Employee experience and culture: As technology accelerates, employees seek greater meaning and human connection. Employee experience goes from nice to have to necessary to preserve engagement and human productivity. HR should craft an inspiring, unified vision for hybrid work that preserves human judgment, empathy, and accountability while embracing AI collaboration. HR must build and maintain workforce trust through decisions, communication and co-creation. Agentic AI can continuously assess employee sentiment, changes in experience, and new engagement patterns to help leaders tailor team and individual-level interventions.
To unlock the full potential of agentic AI, HR should be an architect of the workforce transformation ahead and rethink talent acquisition, development, management, and engagement. Success will depend on clarity, transparency, and trust: defining which tasks are delegated to agents, establishing critical guardrails for data ethics and privacy, and ensuring every AI decision reinforces human values.
This transformation presents HR at the forefront with an additional opportunity—to serve as a lighthouse for embedding agentic AI within its own operations. As HR transitions away from more transactional activities to delivering strategic business impact in a hybrid workplace, HR can model the future of work, turning disruption into sustained competitive advantage and helping businesses design hybrid systems that are faster, fairer, and more resilient.
The organizations that succeed will be those where HR leaders act as architects of a co-intelligent workforce, where humans and AI agents collaborate seamlessly to drive enduring organizational value.
The authors wish to thank Hannah Lee and Lindsay Purcell for their contributions to this blog post.
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This blog post is part of a People & Organization Blog series that explores how organizations will be transformed by agentic AI. Follow us on LinkedIn and keep an eye on the blog for our latest insights and how these technologies will shape organizations today and tomorrow.