Agentic AI can boost productivity in businesses by removing routine bureaucracy and ‘noise’ from the workplace, but this is only achievable with an AI fluent workforce, says Ruth Hickin, VP of Workforce Innovation at CRM technology firm Salesforce.
The company says businesses are looking to emerge as agentic enterprises or those in which human employees and AI agents work together in a seamless, collaborative ecosystem.
However, to achieve this goal, much will depend on their workforce’s ability to harness and apply agentic AI in their daily work.
Salesforce says agentic AI is now part of the workplace and cites insight from workplace advisory firm Gallup to back up its claim.
Hickin says: “For agentic AI to create value, organisations need to reskill employees and build AI fluent workforces to successfully integrate AI into core workflows. When we get AI fluency right, AI moves from a technology innovation to a workforce advantage – it’s the difference between deploying tools and actually changing how work gets done. With AI-savvy workforces, businesses respond to customers faster, unlock new sources of growth and create workplaces where people can do their best work.”
She refers to the company’s Slack Workforce Index, which found that employees who engage with AI every day report 64% higher productivity, 58% better focus and 81% greater job satisfaction.
However, according to McKinsey research into the state of AI in 2025, two-thirds of companies are stuck in the pilot phase.
Says Hickin: “Many organisations are focused on the technology itself, when the real work is preparing people to use it. Agentic AI requires a fundamentally different approach than traditional technology rollouts. You can’t just deploy agents and expect results – you need employees who are ready, willing and able to work alongside them effectively. We know AI fluency is what moves AI and agents from a technology investment to a workforce advantage.”
She adds that today’s businesses and employees cannot afford to get this wrong. “Which is why we published our AI Fluency Playbook, sharing the frameworks we’ve built, hoping to empower other leaders to apply these learnings within their own organisations.”
The playbook is a toolkit built around three actionable components:
- AI engagement: Creating a healthy culture and employee confidence around AI use.
- AI activation: Building the consistent, habitual use of AI in daily workflows.
- AI expertise: Developing the specific human, business and agent skills that drive human+AI collaboration.
Hickin adds that businesses are in the middle of a "once-in-a-lifetime transformation" with AI agents and digital labour, extending human capacity to complete tasks at speed and scale.
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