Skills-based strategy key to integrating AI agents into workforce

By Aaron Tan, Informa TechTarget
Published: 01 Jul 2025

Companies must transition from a credential-based to a skills-based strategy to effectively integrate AI agents into their workforce, according to Fabio Tiviti, Workday’s group vice-president for Asia-Pacific and Japan. In a recent interview, Tiviti emphasized that AI agents should be treated as "digital employees" with defined skills and capabilities, managed through the same lifecycle as human workers—onboarding, training, and even offboarding.

Key Insights

1. Human-AI Coexistence:

   • AI agents must work alongside humans, requiring governance and a "system of record" to manage both in-house and third-party agents.
   • Without this approach, AI may be perceived as a threat rather than an enhancer of productivity.

2. Skills-Based Adoption:

   • Over 40% of companies in Singapore have begun adopting skills-based strategies, with 60% reporting benefits like increased innovation.
   • However, 49% of business leaders cite change management as a barrier.

3. Practical Implementation:

   • Start by automating repetitive tasks to free up human workers for strategic roles.
   • Maintain human oversight, especially in sensitive areas like hiring, where AI should augment—not replace—decision-making.

4. Workday’s Role-Based Agents:

   • Workday’s AI agents, such as its recruitment tool, have shown a 54% increase in recruiter capacity and a 35% reduction in review time.
   • The company recently launched the Workday Agent Partner Network and Agent Gateway to integrate third-party AI agents (e.g., from Microsoft and Google Cloud) using protocols like MCP and A2A.