Agentic AI can prove transformative for companies; however, to overcome the hurdles and achieve ROI, they need to partner with industry leaders that have full-stack agentic AI capabilities.
This is according to speakers at a strategic AI executive roundtable hosted by NTT DATA, in partnership with Microsoft and ITWeb, in Johannesburg this week.
Asokan Moodley, head of AI and Industry Advisory for Middle East and Africa at NTT DATA, said agentic AI represented a step into the future. “We are entering a new era, where intelligent systems don’t just automate tasks, but analyse, decide and act autonomously,” he said. “This is not just a technological shift – it’s a business and cultural transformation.”
Agentic AI leadership
He highlighted NTT DATA’s technology and innovation leadership, with a $3.6 billion investment in R&D annually. The company’s GenAI focus is backed by over 40 years of NTT Group R&D activities in the field of artificial intelligence. “What I’m most excited about is our influence and control of the market from an AI perspective,” he said. “At NTT DATA, we offer end-to-end full stack capability in agentic AI, from strategic advisory and agentic AI development to implementation, integration and fully managed services in the region.
“In partnership with Microsoft, we drive innovation and transform industries through cutting-edge technology. One of the collaborative initiatives we are working on with Microsoft is the Copilot Studio component, along with other services, where we explore and develop advanced AI capabilities and solutions that will empower business and enhance user experience, shaping the future of technology and making a positive impact on business,” he said. “In future, we see predictions of multimodal AI with text, audio and visual components, which will be particularly useful for customer experience, healthcare diagnostics and education.”
Moodley said it would be important to ensure data security and governance to support optimal agentic AI.
Aishwarya Singh, senior VP, Digital Collaboration Services and Head of Microsoft Global Practice at NTT DATA, said agentic AI would prove transformative, particularly in enhancing employee productivity, customer experience, cost reduction and operational efficiency, and innovation.
Singh highlighted the NTT DATA Global AI Report, which found that across global markets, 83% of respondents said they had a well-defined agentic AI strategy in place, but 51% had not yet aligned their strategy with their business plans.
“Some key implications we see are economic growth for South African and MEA businesses, which can optimise business processes, reduce costs and increase productivity in industries such as retail, finance, manufacturing and the public sector, including education.”
Overcoming client challenges
While more than 50% of business processes will be assisted by GenAI by the end of this year, 90% of organisations say legacy infrastructure hinders their effective use of GenAI, and just 45% strongly agree that they have the necessary capabilities to integrate it.
Singh said some of the challenges involved in building AI agents at scale included technology debt and legacy infrastructure, complexity of integration, governance, security and compliance risks, poor planning and inadequate data management.
“There is also a lack of GenAI skills in many enterprises. Not only do IT teams need these skills, but each and every employee must understand what an AI agent can do for them. This calls for huge change management initiatives. Having a partner who can help you navigate this new era becomes important,” she said.
Singh said: “As part of our agentic AI services, we work with Microsoft to manage the full life cycle, from advisory, build and integrate, managed services, through to connectivity. Our interest is in helping you execute.”
NTT DATA is the first to support the Microsoft multi-agent model with Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry and Semantic Kernel for low-code, pro-code and pro-code multi-agents. Singh noted that while there’s still a lot to learn about AI and how to implement it effectively, organisations can rely on NTT DATA’s proven framework to build, deploy and manage AI and agentic AI at scale. This approach streamlines the entire AI process, making it consistent, reliable and focused on delivering real business value.
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