How to manage the growing number of AI agents is an issue employers need to consider
AI agents should be seen as part of a company's workforce and managed in the same way as teams of people, according to Jo-Anne Ruhl, managing director of human resource and finance management software company Workday.
Speaking at a Workday's Elevate Sydney 2025 conference, Ruhl said Agentic AI, one of the fastest growing areas of AI technology, is key to tackling Australia’s declining productivity.
“At Workday we really see Agentic AI not as software but an extension of your workforce … we call them your digital workforce because if you think about it these agents in essence are a type of employee,” she told the conference.
“They are working in your business and on your business, they're working alongside your team to simplify, scale and drive productivity and like your people you will be selecting these AI agents to have certain skills so they can perform certain tasks, so they require onboarding, they require training, they require management and just like employees you might need to offboard them at some stage.”
Agentic AI are programs that can carry out specific tasks with minimal human intervention and learn decision making.
In February, Workday launched a new workforce management system to help businesses manage AI agents. Called Agent System of Record, the product is designed to govern, manage, and optimise the digital workforce.
Ruhl acknowledged that while AI can bring “mixed emotions”, she said AI agents would not replace but augment human potential.
She said research showed the workforce was exhausted and frazzled with higher levels of burnout and workplace mental health related issues.
“AI elevates productivity. If we can streamline processes, automate those repetitive tasks, optimise your HR your finance resource allocation this frees you up from what is frankly, we can all agree, is boring work,” she told the conference.
“If you are getting rid of that boring work, the productivity gains liberate you to focus on innovation, collaboration, problem solving and really provide space for that blue sky thinking which we all know is where competitive advantage lies."
Ruhl said many reports show Australia lags in productivity growth and the accelerated use of AI could “rewrite that productivity narrative”.
“Imagine AI that understands its environment, can decide how it processes work, take a task and complete it, have the skills to do that is required,” she said.
“Of course this is always in a framework of security, trust, good quality data and human oversight but if that agent could do all those things we call this self-thinking AI software agents.”
She said an example of this was Workday’s recruiter agent that can proactively identify candidates for roles based on the skill set required, schedule interviews, prep the interviewer with questions for that role.
She said customers using recruiter agent reported 20% increase in recruiter productivity, 20 to 30% increase in speed to fill roles and 40% less churn, leading to a savings of $3 million for every 100 people retained.
“This revolution is truly upon us so it’s good for us to own that narrative and move forward together and these agents are here to stay.”
