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Banks are hiring people to decide which agent does what, Axios warns companies will answer for their rogue agents, and Bank of America screens every AI use case against 16 risks. If you run agents, every task they touch needs an owner. I'd draw those lines before the next agent goes live. Only 26% of organizations clearly define which work is human-led, AI-assisted or AI-executed.
Innovation Snapshot
"2026 is the year we moved from AI systems that do search to AI systems that do work."
— Charlie Flanagan, Chief AI Officer, Balyasny Asset Management
In today's lineup
Robots
Decide which work stays human before agents go live
Real ROI from Gen AI
Write the work down before agents take it
People
Pari Singh hands hardware change tracking to AI agents
Love
Reward the people already getting 10x from AI
Human + Machine by Paul Daugherty and H. James Wilson
Reading time: 3 min.
ROBOTS 🤖
How are robotics and AI changing industries? We break down the latest news, tools, and innovations for you.
Top Insights
Banks hire for "agent orchestration" as demand jumps 1,721%, paying people to decide which agent does what.
Companies running rogue AI agents face liability too, so every agent needs a named owner.
Bank of America scores every AI use case on 16 risks, skipping AI where simpler models work.
Blackstone and banks amass $60 billion for Broadcom's AI chips, financing compute for Anthropic like infrastructure.
Amazon pledges $1 billion to its data center communities, buying local support as the backlash grows.
Decide which work stays human before agents go live
Only 26% of organizations clearly define which work is human-led, AI-assisted or AI-executed. IBM's 2026 CHRO Study found that last month, surveying 1,500 workforce executives and 8,800 employees. In the other 74%, nobody has decided where the agent's job ends and the person's begins.
The organizations that drew those lines report an 18% reduction in risk and a 20% improvement in quality. Among the leaders IBM calls Thinking Organizations, 85% have mapped the high-impact workflows where agents shape or run work end to end. Yet 46% of organizations set AI strategy without the CHRO, the executive who owns how jobs are designed.
What to do about it:
Map your highest-volume workflows task by task, with a cost and quality baseline Finance signs
Label each task human-led, AI-assisted or AI-executed, with one named owner
Bring HR into AI strategy decisions alongside IT and Finance from the first cycle
How does your organization decide which work AI takes on today?
Real ROI from Gen AI
How human-centric AI delivers business results
Omega Healthcare put a UiPath agent in production on prior authorizations, a paperwork bottleneck in healthcare billing, cutting handling time by up to 75% and lifting first-pass approvals by up to 20%.
MultiFamily Property Group gave overnight leasing inquiries to an AppFolio AI agent, and after-hours leads now convert 42% more often on demand that used to sit unanswered until morning.
pladis, the McVitie's maker, gave staff Microsoft 365 Copilot and custom agents, including a health and safety risk assessor, and engaged colleagues now save more than 12 hours a month each.
Tool Spotlight
Your weekly briefing on tools that create competitive leverage
Write the work down before agents take it
Operations teams write a process in plain English, and Kognitos agents run it with an audit trail, sending only true exceptions to a person. It recently partnered with TypeSafe AI on claims and collections decisions. Best for COOs putting agents on finance operations while people keep the judgment calls.
Scribe records how people do their work across tools and turns it into step-by-step workflows. Scribe Optimize then flags the frequent, slow tasks ready for an agent. Best for Chief AI Officers who want evidence of what people do all day before choosing what to automate.
Three more ways to see the work first
Skan AI suits banks, insurers and healthcare groups who need proof of how work runs before agents go into production.
Soroco suits operations teams who need to see how people and agents work together and test a change before rolling it out.
Mimica suits shared-services leaders who need process maps built from desktop activity without manual tagging.
PEOPLE 👥
Meet the innovators turning bold ideas into real-world impact.
Transformation Champion
Pari Singh hands hardware change tracking to AI agents
A rocket or an electric vehicle carries millions of requirements, and one design change can ripple through all of them. At Flow Engineering, Pari Singh gives that tracking to AI agents. They follow every change, push updates across mechanical, electrical and software teams, and check results against requirements. Anduril, Joby Aviation and Rivian use it. Flow raised a $50M Series B at a $750M valuation this week to cut iteration from months to days.
LOVE ❤️
Practical wisdom, growth tactics, and a must-read book that will challenge the way you think.
Reward the people already getting 10x from AI
I know people who finish a day's work in two hours with AI, then clock the rest of the day for appearances. Paid by the hour, they have no reason to tell you, or to show anyone how. Find them before you decide which work goes to agents.
Find the people already getting 2x to 10x from AI tools.
Document how they work before redesigning any role around agents.
Pilot outcome-based rewards with one team in the next twelve-week cycle.
I make the full case for outcome-based pay in chapter five of 100x.
Transformative Reads
One book, handpicked from my conversations with friends, industry leaders, and tech innovators:
In Human + Machine, Accenture's Paul Daugherty and H. James Wilson map the "missing middle", where people train, explain and supervise AI while machines take the repetitive, data-heavy work. Their research found the biggest performance gains come when people and AI work together, which means redesigning roles around that split.
Perfect for: COOs and Chief AI Officers deciding which work people keep and which AI takes.
In Culture
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Much Love,
Matt and the Future Works team
