Paul Field, Professional Services/Managed Services BU leader at CASA Software. (Image: Supplied)
AI and agentic AI are proving transformative in many use cases, but they aren’t a replacement for human expertise in the ICT professional services space.
This is according to Paul Field, Professional Services/Managed Services BU leader at CASA Software, which positions itself as a leading digital transformation and regional IT services organisation operating for over three decades.
According to Gartner, agentic AI is at the peak of inflated expectations in its hype cycle, with the 2026 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey finding that only 17% of organisations have deployed AI agents, but more than 60% expect to do so within the next two years. But at the same time, reality checks are emerging. Businesses in South Africa and around the world are realising that agentic AI comes with governance and risk challenges – and often at a far higher cost than expected.
Field says local customers are increasingly realising that AI and agentic AI are not silver bullets and are likely to be a complementary technology, augmenting the work humans do.
“We’re finding that the initial AI hype is dying down. Local customers are particularly seeing AI as just another technology tool and are adamant that they want humans in the loop to ensure proper governance in any AI deployment,” he says.
Augmenting professional services
“In the professional services space, we believe that AI and agentic AI are no replacement for the decades of experience, certifications and deep sector-specific expertise our team members have accrued,” he says.
“Human connections are crucial for establishing rapport and building trust in business. At CASA Software, our engineers are certified in all our OEM technologies, and some of them have worked side by side with customers for decades. They understand our customers and the sectors they operate in. Our team of over 30 consultants has decades of collective experience and extensive expertise in sectors ranging from finance to telecoms and retail. The fact that we take a lot of care to understand our customers’ industries and build connections and strong relationships with them is likely the reason they come back and continue wanting to interface with us. AI won’t replace that.”
Field adds: “In much the same way as RPA and automation didn’t result in job losses but significantly improved efficiencies, we think AI agents will augment human capabilities and enable organisations to do more with the resources they already have. Done optimally, it needs to add value, improve outcomes and obviously deliver more in the same amount of time.”
Building on over 30 years of technical expertise and experience, CASA Software is now helping customers to develop and deploy AI and agentic AI strategically, ensuring that the solutions deployed are effective, secure and offer real business value. “Local organisations are cognisant of the fact that AI token costs can become exorbitant, so they have to be sure they are getting value from it,” Field says.
CASA Software Professional Services BU is also exploring use cases for AI and agentic AI within its own operations. For example, an AI agent built to help review legal documents allows the team member tasked with contract reviews to do more thorough analysis and take on higher-value work.
“Wherever AI is deployed, human oversight remains an integral part of the guardrails. Humans are the final level check in terms of whether AI outputs make sense, were not hallucinated, are factual and compliant. It’s essential that humans validate (from a compliance perspective) and verify (the accuracy) of the content, code or general outputs,” Field concludes.
