Human Resources is an ever-evolving, inherently technology-driven field. Managing the employment, pay, rewards, and day-to-day requests of thousands of employees means the industry is ripe for automation, enabling talent to focus on more complex and strategic challenges. As Human Resource information systems (HRIS) get more complex, HR professionals are able to tailor the employee experience to the individual, but there’s a human cost to that depth, with 89 percent of workers feeling at risk of burnout.
Now tech is catching up with demand, spurred on by the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) tools primed for the workplace. One product of the technology, agentic AI, or autonomous generative AI agents, can give the HR department the help they need, but users will have to be proficient in a few key skills to make the most out of this innovation.
What Can Agents Do for HR?
AI can already do a lot for HR, but autonomous agents are the next step for workforce tools, differentiating themselves with proactiveness, independence, and contextual awareness. Currently, generative AI (genAI) is streamlining HR work by summarizing prospective talents’ resumes, among other examples. However, with the support of a system of AI agents, HR professionals could receive automatically summarized resumes, build out personalized responses, tailor interview questions, and offer letters drafted based on interview transcripts with little to no prompting.
Agents have the potential to be involved in processes across the HR ecosystem, from retention and acquisition to talent development and internal process maintenance. If there is a clear, data-driven workflow, agentic AI more than likely can be utilized. These tools are inherently smaller in scope than the generative AI, such as Copilot or ChatGPT, that workers have become familiar with over the past few years. That’s part of what enables them to be so powerful when implemented correctly. Their entire purpose is dedicated to one goal, rigorously trained on materials that will help them meet that goal.
For example, companies could use internal process documents, industry best practices, organizational strategies, and maybe even employee satisfaction data to train a system to review current organizational policies, flag anything outdated or incomplete, and draft corrections. In this system, HR professionals could have two or three individual agents taking over each part of the task: one to flag, one to draft, and one to coordinate changes and approvals across departments.
There are two important aspects of agentic AI to note here. First, as with any other AI tool, agentic AI cannot operate in an unmonitored environment. Human interaction and intervention should be both possible and encouraged at each step. While agents, as they learn, ultimately are primed to be virtually autonomous, their outputs are still open to error and should always be inspected before being put into action. Second, agentic AI is constantly learning. Agents must be upskilled similarly to how their human counterparts train. Organizational policies change, industry best practices change, technology gets updated, and business priorities adapt to market conditions. If companies implement agentic AI, this is something they must factor into their strategies.
What Skills Do HR Pros Need for Agentic AI?
First and foremost, HR leaders should have a firm grasp on their departments’ current skills repertoire, including both technical and human-centered capabilities. The use of benchmarking —periodic assessments through quizzes, structured projects, or thought experiments—produces the most effective training plans while providing an accurate gauge of growth and organizational ability.
Objectively, the skills needed for agentic AI aren’t too different from the skills needed for other AI tools. Things such as prompt engineering, technological literacy, and responsible use still apply. However, a greater depth of understanding can make a difference. For example, prompt engineering is even more important with agents as, with their more focused domain, improper prompts can invalidate outputs, sending faulty responses across the whole system.
On the other hand, essential human-centered skills such as interpersonal communication, critical and strategic thinking, and creativity are key for both configuring and managing agentic AI. These skills can build and reinforce a close relationship with IT, ensuring greater security and data accuracy.
A strong partnership and clear communication with tech leaders ensure a full understanding of agents’ capabilities, the most efficient and effective agent structure, and rapid response to changes in technology or policy. It is also vital for any workers directly interacting with or approving the work of AI agents to have strong critical and strategic thinking skills as they’ll need to validate outputs against their own knowledge, prevent harmful or inaccurate responses from continuing in the system, and recognize when there may be issues with training materials.
Creativity is another fundamental human skill not easily replicable by AI. In HR, it can lead to innovative strategies that make or break a company’s attractiveness to talent and success in its industry. Creativity is also necessary to work alongside agentic AI, discovering new use cases, recognizing breakthrough ideas, and finding solutions to blockers preventing the tool from operating to its greatest ability.
The advent of agentic AI in HR marks a transformative step toward a more proactive, efficient, and dynamic workforce management structure. However, the successful integration of agentic AI hinges on the relationship between human expertise and technological advancement. HR professionals must cultivate essential skills to harness the full potential of these agents. Moreover, continuous collaboration with IT and tech leaders is crucial to ensure data security, accuracy, and adaptability. While HR experts typically lead talent development on a large scale, leaders can’t neglect their own teams’ training, especially to make the most of a technology that could be the difference between a burnt-out workforce and a thriving one.
