This will be the last generation to work with all-human workforces, and the challenge before business leaders is not simply adopting new technology, but architecting an entirely new operating model where humans and autonomous AI agents work in concert.
This is according to Linda Saunders, country manager and senior director of Solution Engineering Africa at Salesforce.
Saunders cites Salesforce 2025 CEO research, which states that while 99% of CEOs say they are prepared to integrate digital labour into their business, only 51% feel fully prepared to do so.
“The CEO’s willingness or strategic intent on capturing the value of digital labour (99% recognise digital labour – AI agents and autonomous tools – as essential for competitiveness and growth) is tempered by a 48% drop when aligned to actual organisational readiness and maturity to deliver against this ambition. This isn't merely a technology shortfall; it's a profound leadership, organisational and change-management challenge often masquerading as a tech opportunity,” says Saunders.
She adds that in SA and across Africa, this gap is amplified by local realities: legacy systems, fragmented data landscapes, skills shortages and regulatory complexities like POPIA compliance and data sovereignty.
“Integrating digital labour demands an enterprise-wide rethink – redefining how work is allocated, owned, structured, executed, governed, incentivised and culturally supported in our unique market and regulatory context.”
The scale of change is already visible in the data, says Saunders.
Salesforce research into the latest CIO trends shows AI implementation has surged 282% year over year, jumping from 11% to 42% of organisations deploying AI at scale.
Saunders adds that new research from the IDC, commissioned by Salesforce, estimates digital labour will generate a global economic impact of $13 trillion by 2030, suggesting that agentic AI tools could enhance productivity by taking on the equivalent of almost 23% of a full-time employee's weekly workload.
But this does differ from sector to sector.
“The 23% productivity benchmark is a useful average, but the real 'agentic dividend' varies significantly by sector. Impact is largely driven by functional density – how data-rich, repetitive, decision-oriented and digitisable the work is,” Saunders explains.
“Higher functional density generally delivers greater returns. High-impact sectors include financial services, retail, healthcare, manufacturing and logistics. These environments feature high-volume transactions, frequent customer interactions and complex workflows where agents excel at orchestration and augmentation. Lower-impact sectors tend to be dominated by physical labour; however, when examined at the role or use-case level, even these sectors can unlock value by selectively applying agents where digital leverage exists.”
Similar in Africa
From an African perspective, similar patterns are emerging, with accelerated interest in financial services and fintech (compliance, fraud detection, personalised service), retail and e-commerce (customer service, inventory and supply chain optimisation) and telecoms and media (high-frequency interactions and complex network operations).
“Where the pattern diverges is that even in sectors with lower functional density, such as mining or manufacturing, digital workforces can transform support functions through planning and analytics, freeing humans for higher-value oversight – particularly in skills-constrained environments,” Saunders adds.
“The key insight for African leaders: this is not just about time saved, but value redeployment. True ROI comes from using freed capacity to scale, innovate, deepen customer intimacy and compete locally and globally.”
Dual workforce director
The shift to dual workforce management is already reshaping executive priorities. Salesforce asserts that CIOs now partner more closely with CEOs than any other C-suite peer, reflecting their central role in technology-driven strategy.
Meanwhile, the company’s research shows that 80% of chief human resources officers believe that within five years, most workforces will combine humans and AI agents, delivering productivity gains of 30% and labour cost reductions of 19%. CFOs have also shifted from cautious experimentation to actively integrating AI agents into how they assess value, measure ROI and define business outcomes.
“Today’s leaders are the architects of this transition. The role of directing the dual workforce is necessary, grounded in principles for effective agent deployment. AI must be treated as an organisational transformation, not just a technical initiative, affecting workflows, performance management and strategic planning.”
The director of the dual workforce role is not only realistic, it’s one of the more pragmatic solutions available, says Saunders.
“We can't hire our way out by chasing scarce deep-tech talent at scale when it doesn’t exist. Instead, we deploy digital labour to create headroom as we craft our way forward: deploying AI agents to handle repetitive digital work, freeing scarce skilled humans for higher-value tasks while creating pathways to redeploy and upskill new or underutilised talent.
"The role is envisioned as a department or function leader who can strategically orchestrate by designing workflows, managing and measuring agent performance and enabling human-digital collaboration. The ability for this role to be supported by a lean team of skilled professionals can then deliver outsized impact, multiplying capacity and being responsive to today's business requirements as the pipeline of skills develops and matures.
"With the majority of CEOs acknowledging that digital labour will transform their company structure entirely, and that implementing agents is critical for competing in today's economic climate, the reality is that transformation is not coming, it’s already here, and it requires a fundamental change to the way we approach leadership.”
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