Meet the chief resource officer

"Quickfire question: Who, in a business, should be responsible for AI? Most of us would assume the tech side of an organization should hold the bag: the CTO, CIO, CDO, CMO or perhaps even a new chief AI officer. And while this direction certainly made sense in the early wave of AI adoption-when it was still a mere tool-the rise of agentic AI (read: autonomous, intelligent agents that behave less like gadgets and more like colleagues) forces us to rethink our assumptions."

"Which means we should be asking whether AI should be treated as a technology or as a member of the team. And if it's the latter, is HR actually the role best positioned to oversee it? WHY HR IS-RE-EMERGING AS A STRATEGIC AI PLAYER While some might think that AI will diminish the influence of chief people officers, human-centered agentic design is bringing HR back to the center of business transformation. After all, autonomous AI could transform the very definition of an HR role: managing workflows, employee experiences, and workplace culture."

"One challenge blocking effective AI management is often rooted in organizations' outdated design models. Traditional enterprise structures, especially in the Fortune 500, lag years behind the market and best practice. For instance, until recently CFOs were often leading AI decisions, largely optimizing for cost savings only. But just because a machine can do something doesn't mean it should. Research by Gather found that 95% of AI pilots fail to deliver meaningful business impact because they're overly based on algorithms."

Agentic AI behaves more like colleagues than tools, prompting a shift from pure technology ownership to team-centered oversight. HR is positioned to manage agentic AI because responsibilities like workflows, employee experience, and workplace culture align with people operations. Outdated enterprise design models and cost-centric leadership have hindered AI effectiveness. Research shows a high failure rate for AI pilots and substantial employee spend on personal tools, indicating unmet needs. Human-centered agentic design addresses these problems by prioritizing human needs, improving ROI, reducing risk, and creating sustainable competitive advantages while augmenting rather than simply replacing people.

Read at Fast Company