AI Agents and Human Commitments: A New Perspective
Pablo Flores
CTO @ Pluralistic Networks | AI & Chatbot Solutions Expert | Web, Mobile, Voice & Chat | NLP (Microsoft, AWS, Google)
The New Wave of AI Agents
The technology world is captivated by a transformative promise: AI agents that will revolutionize our work. Powered by advanced language models, these autonomous systems claim they will manage schedules, write emails, coordinate meetings, and make decisions on our behalf. The vision is compelling—a future where mundane tasks vanish, handled seamlessly by intelligent agents working tirelessly in the background.
At its core, an "agent" refers to software that perceives its environment and takes autonomous actions to achieve specific goals on your behalf. In modern AI, these agents aim to handle complex, context-dependent coordination through natural language understanding and generation. While these capabilities are remarkable, it's essential to understand them in the context of how humans traditionally coordinate and make commitments.
Lessons from Automation History
For decades, successive waves of automation have promised to remove the mundane aspects of work. Early personal computing brought spreadsheet macros and email filters, while later enterprise software introduced workflow automation and Business Process Management (BPM) systems that streamlined well-defined processes. Industries like insurance, banking, and manufacturing thrived on these systems by leveraging standardized commitments—reducing human involvement in key decisions and exception handling, thereby ensuring efficiency, consistency, and regulatory compliance.
BPM systems excel by standardizing and enforcing specific commitments within well-defined boundaries, yet many real-world commitments lie outside these boundaries, requiring human judgment, understanding, and relationship management—areas where AI agents now promise to add value.
Human Commitments in a Networked World
Organizations operate through networks of commitments. Every promise, acceptance, or obligation—whether a manager promising to deliver a project or a customer clicking "Buy Now" on Amazon—sets off a cascade of commitments across various parties. These commitments form complex webs that drive future actions, negotiations, and changes.
Understanding these webs clarifies what automation can and cannot handle. Developing a product—especially in consulting, service organizations, or custom projects—requires immense interaction and commitment. Much of this work hinges on judgment, conversation, and relationship management. These essential human skills are critical for interpreting challenges, crafting solutions, and navigating interpersonal dynamics—areas that automation cannot fully replicate.
Are We Ready for Automatic Management of Our Resources?
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Can we allow an agent to approve contracts, promise work on our behalf, or deliver something to another person who expects a specific outcome from us? Would you allow an agent to assess that you are working too hard, initiate a vacation request, search for vacation options, or even pay for it? Other examples might include:
Not today. While automation can manage structured tasks, these scenarios often require nuanced human judgment, adaptability, and empathy—qualities that AI currently cannot fully replicate.
Balancing Automation with Human Insight
Automation technologies excel at handling structured, repetitive tasks, while AI agents can assist with communication and coordination in less structured environments. Organizations must clearly delineate which tasks can be delegated to AI:
Preserving human judgment for strategic, relationship-driven, and high-risk commitments ensures that automation enhances rather than replaces human capabilities.
Implications
As AI agents integrate into business, organizations should:
The future lies not in replacing human judgment with AI but in combining them effectively. By delegating routine tasks to AI agents, organizations free up human talent to focus on the commitments that truly matter—those that build trust, shape strategy, and create lasting value. Embracing AI thoughtfully enhances our inherent strengths in coordination, judgment, and relationship-building, ensuring that human commitments remain at the heart of business success.
Consultant | Coach | Project Manager 🚀 – Fundamental skills for Working with others 🤝, Innovation 💡, and Learning to Learn 💪🏼
3moThanks Pablo! Since the popularization of LLMs I have seen many small businesses approach me with fully automated marketing channels. I have spoken to a few of them, it has been a pleasant experience from the beginning to actually scheduling an appointment. The appointment has also been pleasant with a specialized sales person. I just hope it doesn't happen like the app boom, where every company started developing their app. If all companies contact me like this, including small companies, it would become totally ignorable. A new form of spam. The essential thing is not automation, but the ability to listen to what matters and then deliver satisfactorily.
PCC Exec Coach | Keynote Speaker | High-Stakes Leadership | Transition | Creating a Proactive Mindset | Unleashing Potential for Success
3moThank you, Pablo Flores This article offers a thoughtful exploration of AI's potential while rightly acknowledging its limitations. As someone who is favorable to AI, I appreciate the emphasis on using it to enhance human capabilities rather than replace them, particularly in tasks that require judgment, empathy, and creativity. However, my reservation lies in ensuring that as we delegate more routine tasks to AI, we don’t lose sight of what it means to be human—our ability to connect, empathize, and navigate the complexities of relationships. Especially for younger generations, it’s vital that we balance technological advancement with fostering skills and experiences that keep us grounded in our shared humanity. By approaching AI thoughtfully, we can create a future where technology supports our humanity rather than overshadowing it.
Asking just one more question to elevate teams and drive value
3moViewing business (and life) as management of commitments opens up the possibility of management tools to observe, track, and report on those commitments. Many AI agents in production today have a human in the loop to address these issues. I appreciate the distinctions Pablo has teased out here to help think through how to approach paying attention at the right time.
Appreciate your continuing to draw attention to then uniqueness that human are and what they bring. Years ago when designing commitment processes we had an axiom - you cannot define or write a process for wisdom, skill and judgment that comes from years of experience. You make that point well.