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Redesigning the digital operating model for the agentic AI era

The strategic choices CIOs must make to capture value from agents
Published

15 October 2026

Your digital strategy will be constrained by an operating model designed for a different era


Most companies are introducing AI agents into operating models designed for humans delivering and governing technology. That approach may produce faster individual tasks, but it will not deliver enterprise-scale productivity.


The strategic question for CIOs is therefore no longer whether to deploy agents but how to redesign ownership, governance, capabilities, sourcing, and organisation so that humans and agents can jointly deliver business outcomes. The companies that answer these questions first will not merely automate the existing organisation; they will operate differently.

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The forward look


Even if agent capability stopped improving today, most organisations would spend years absorbing what already exists. But it will not stop improving. Frontier models now complete tasks that take a skilled person twelve hours or more, and that horizon has been doubling roughly every seven months.13 Vendors will keep embedding agents in the platforms you already run.


The immediate question is not what the final agentic organisation will look like but whether today’s operating model can safely support the next wave of autonomy. 


We suggest starting with three questions:

  1. Where will agents create sufficient value to justify redesigning the workflow rather than merely accelerating it?
  2. What autonomy can the organisation safely support with its current governance, data, and platform capabilities?
  3. Which operating-model choices must be made now, and which should remain deliberately open?

Answering them well is a leadership task before it is a technology one. 

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