Designing Agentic AI Systems Around Your Company's Implicit Rules
By
by K. Sudhir
Summary
This article from Harvard Business Review discusses how companies should design agentic AI systems around the implicit, unwritten rules that govern organizational behavior, rather than just automating explicit processes. It uses the example of a financial services firm where an AI routing agent correctly processed a beneficiary change request, but the system failed to recognize that the client was a high-net-worth individual who expected a personal touch. The article argues that successful firms will use agent deployment as an "X-ray" to reveal hidden organizational dynamics and redesign their operations accordingly, blending formal procedures with informal norms and human judgment.
Source
bskyDesigning Agentic AI Systems Around Your Company's Implicit Ruleshbr.orgKey quotes
· 3 pulledA high-net-worth client called her financial services firm to update her beneficiary designations—a routine task. The AI routing agent classified it correctly, operations processed it, and a communication agent confirmed completion with a standard template. Every part of the system worked as designed.
The firms that win will use agent deployment as an X-ray and redesign their organizations around what they find.
The system worked perfectly—and yet it failed.
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