The Conference Board Proposes Five Stage Framework for AI Agents

The Conference Board outlines in a press release a five stage framework for redesigning work around AI agents. The framework draws on interviews, focus groups and research involving senior leaders in human resources, talent and AI.

The process begins with a desired business outcome, followed by dividing workflows between people and agents while preserving human accountability. Companies should then establish data access, permissions, controls, monitoring, maintenance, supervision and budgets before deployment.

The framework recommends measuring combined human and agent results through quality, speed, cost and other business outcomes. Verified gains can be classified as cash savings, avoided future costs or higher value work, then directed toward cost reduction, additional capacity, reinvestment, employees or customers.

The report also recommends protecting early career talent pipelines through mentoring, rotations, supervised practice and progressively more complex work. Business leaders should own outcomes, technology teams should provide secure tools, finance teams should assess costs and returns, and human resources teams should manage changes to roles, skills, staffing and employee experience.