AI Can't Lead, But Agentic AI Can Find Your Leaders – If You Let It

Forbes

30-04-2025

Powered by good data, agentic AI can dynamically map skills across your workforce, revealing hidden ... More strengths and untapped potential.
Leadership is one of the most complex and uniquely human capabilities we have. It draws on emotional intelligence, judgment, communication, and the ability to bring others along toward a shared goal. And over the years, we've gotten better at developing those qualities. We invest in coaching. We create growth pathways. We give people stretch assignments to help them build confidence and perspective. When it comes to nurturing leadership, we've made real progress.
But spotting the next generation of leaders? That's where we still often struggle.
We've built systems to identify 'high-potentials.' We've leaned on résumés, performance reviews, and succession plans. Sometimes we go outside the organization hoping for a fresh perspective or a quick win. And yet, time and again, we find ourselves asking: How did we miss that person?
We miss them because the tools we've used were designed for a different kind of workplace – one where leadership was tied to hierarchy, and success followed a fairly straight line. But today, the signals of real leadership – collaboration, creativity, influence – are much harder to pin down. They show up in unexpected places and aren't always captured in a KPI or performance review.
As a result, the people doing the most meaningful work, the ones holding teams together or moving projects forward, can easily go unnoticed.
That's where things are shifting.
We now have something new at our disposal: a different kind of AI, known as agentic AI. Unlike traditional systems that simply report back, this technology actively assists. In the case of Workhuman's AI Assistant, it can scan for emerging patterns across your workforce, surface hidden strengths, and offer recommendations you might not have seen coming. In essence, it works like a digital Strategic Talent Advisor – constantly learning, always observing, and ready with insight that helps you act.
When used with care and intention, this AI doesn't make work less human. In fact, it makes our decisions more human, because by using human data derived from information-dense sources, it helps us see the potential that was always there in our people.
AI Is Already Better Than Humans at Spotting Talent
As much as we'd all like to think we're good at recognizing potential, the truth is we're working with some built-in limitations.
Managers, understandably, tend to reward the people they see most often or hear from the loudest. HR systems still lean heavily on output and tenure, rather than influence or collaboration. And bias – in all its forms, unconscious or otherwise – creeps in quietly, distorting who gets noticed.
That's where AI already helps a lot – and in particular what we call Human Intelligence™, or HI. When it's analyzing the right kinds of signals – like who people turn to for help, who gets recognized by peers, who bridges teams – it starts to reveal a different picture of leadership based on actual day-to-day impact.
And what's fascinating is how often that picture surprises us. I've seen examples where a mid-level specialist turned out to be one of the most influential people in a global organization – not because they managed the biggest team, but because they were the person everyone trusted to solve tough problems. And that insight didn't come from their résumé or review. It came through behavioral signals that traditional tools tend to miss – patterns of recognition from peers, paired with an AI Strategic Talent Advisor.
How Agentic AI Changes the Talent Game
I don't mean ChatGPT. Unlike generative AI, which creates content or ideas, agentic AI is focused on achieving outcomes. As technologist Bernard Marr has put it: 'Generative AI is about producing something new, while agentic AI is about achieving something specific. One creates, and the other acts.'
And that's exactly what makes agentic AI such a compelling fit for talent strategy. It surfaces insights – but it also proactively recommends action. It can suggest the right person for a high-stakes project, flag early signs of attrition, or identify someone whose influence is quietly growing across the organization.
Agentic AI can say, 'Here's someone who's emerging as a leader in your culture – maybe it's time they were given a new opportunity.' It can flag when someone's influence is growing or when a team might be at risk of losing a key contributor because their talents aren't being recognized.
In that sense, agentic AI can help organizations do something they've always wanted to do but haven't been able to pull off at scale: make talent decisions based on real impact, not just visibility.
The promise here is massive and far from theoretical. As Marr also wrote, 'While previous iterations of AI focused on making predictions or generating content, we're now witnessing the emergence of something far more sophisticated: AI agents that can independently perform complex tasks and make decisions.' That shift – from insight to orchestration – is what puts agentic AI in a category of its own.
It's also what makes agentic AI such a compelling fit for talent strategy. It can recommend which team should take on a high-stakes project, or identify your next generation of leaders. It can suggest succession paths, flag flight risk, and help orchestrate everything from mentorship to mobility.
Great, right? But there's a catch. And it's a big one. The data.
Another futurist, Kolawole Samuel Adebayo put it succinctly: 'While data remains the cornerstone of AI performance, it's also the biggest bottleneck for agentic AI. AI agents are only as good as their data.'
That's the part of the conversation that's often overlooked – and is arguably one of the most important.
The Data Hygiene Problem
The truth is talent management has a big data problem. Most organizations are still feeding their AI systems data that's either incomplete, transactional, or unintentionally biased. Things like self-assessments, old performance reviews, or even data that was generated by other AI systems. When that happens, the results can look intelligent on the surface – but they're often just reinforcing the same blind spots leaders were already struggling with.
It's a bit like building a high-powered telescope and then pointing it at a foggy window. No matter how sophisticated the technology is, if the input is flawed, the insight will be too.
So, what does good data look like?
In my experience working with many global Fortune 500 companies who are focused on building great places to work – one thing is clear. The most valuable signals come from records of human interactions – especially moments of peer-to-peer recognition. These are real-time, voluntary, and often unfiltered reflections of how people work together, solve problems, and support one another. They show influence, not just output. They capture leadership in motion – not just in theory.
This is why we've been intentional about how we use AI in our platform. For instance, we don't let generative AI write recognition moments. That may seem counterintuitive in this AI-obsessed moment, but there's a reason. Those moments carry emotional and cultural weight. They're human. And we've found that when people are coached to write unbiased, data-rich recognition – rather than having their words replaced – by AI, the result is far more meaningful. And from a data standpoint, much more valuable.
An Agentic AI Strategic Talent Advisor
Once you have that kind of data flowing in, the role of agentic AI becomes something far more strategic. It's surfacing patterns and orchestrating decisions.
Powered by good data, agentic AI can dynamically map skills across your workforce, revealing hidden strengths and untapped potential. It can suggest project teams based on how people actually collaborate and contribute. It can flag rising leaders before they've been officially promoted, and help create a more inclusive path to advancement by looking beyond the usual suspects.
This is where it starts to function as a true Strategic Talent Advisor. A strategic partner that helps leaders see the full picture of what their people are capable of – and how to put that capability to work.
And when you can do that at scale, across an entire organization, something powerful happens: you become more agile. You can move faster, make smarter bets, and retain the people who make the biggest difference. It's a better use of AI. It's also a better way to lead.
AI as Equalizer vs. Differentiator
AI is exciting and new. But soon enough, if not already, the technology itself will be ubiquitous. It won't be the differentiator. It is table stakes.
In fact, even agentic AI is already on its way to becoming a common capability – available to most organizations in some form. That means the real competitive advantage in the future won't come from having AI. It will come from how you use it, what you feed it, and how it helps you to deploy your real differentiator: your people.
Imagine two competitors with the same tech stack. One is training its agentic AI on recycled data from rigid processes and annual surveys. The other is feeding it a living stream of authentic, peer-generated signals that show how work really happens.
Which one moves faster? Innovates more? Builds a healthier, more resilient culture?
The Future of Leadership Is Human Intelligence
Organizations that use agentic AI as a Strategic Talent Advisor will make better decisions, faster. HR managers can spot talent earlier. Talent Acquisition can build stronger, more collaborative teams. CHRO's can retain the people who matter most. This makes the entire team stronger and elevates HR's strategic contribution to the business.
But it starts with data that's worthy of the people it represents. That's why, at Workhuman, we place such a strong emphasis on recognition – as a cultural practice, but also as a source of truth that reflects the richness, complexity, and potential of human contribution.
As Mark Benioff recently observed, 'With Agentic AI, we can revolutionize work and create a more prosperous, sustainable world. By focusing on trust, accountability and our common humanity, we can ensure that Agentic AI becomes a force for good.'
And as powerful as agentic AI is today, what's coming next may be even more transformative – and more complex. Soon, these systems will be capable of not just suggesting action but executing them independently. That shift will raise critical questions about autonomy, ethics, and accountability. But as I recently shared in my recent conversation with futurist Jacob Morgan on his Future Ready Leadership podcast, no matter how advanced AI becomes, we'll always need human oversight in talent decisions. AI can spot potential, but only humans can define purpose. And leadership, at its core, is a deeply human endeavor. We must ensure that the future of AI in HR is not just intelligent – but also principled.
If you're curious about where to start or just want to talk these ideas through, I invite you to come to Workhuman Live in Denver in May. Human Intelligence™ will be a big topic of conversation and you can get a look at our own agentic AI solution.
Let's keep the conversation going.