Latest news with #RishadTobaccowala
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rishad Tobaccowala Predicts a ‘Significant Agentic Workforce' by 2026
At the Future of Work conference in New York City, Rishad Tobaccowala, former chief strategist and growth officer at Publicis, predicted a "very significant agentic workforce" by the end of 2026. "Agents are coming much faster than most people expect," he said. The reality of AI agents applying for jobs, working alongside humans, and in some cases, outperforming them, is no longer hypothetical. It's becoming a reality and compelling companies to rethink everything-from HR to what the workforce looks like when half the team doesn't need coffee breaks. Tobaccowala is among nearly 100 industry leaders, including executives from financial services company Intercontinental Exchange and Choice Hotels, backing an open letter from AI startup MarkeTeam, which uses AI agents to automate marketing tasks. MarkeTeam is lobbying LinkedIn to reinstate profiles of its AI employees and recognize them as part of the modern workforce. These profiles were taken down for violating LinkedIn's policy against fake profiles or entities. The AI employees were present on LinkedIn for nearly a year, complete with resumes and recruiter interest. Now, one agent, Ella, is back with a new custom tag-#AIAgentOpenToWork-a move CEO Naama Manova-Twito said was designed to ease platform concerns about transparency. MarkeTeam is circulating an open letter, obtained by ADWEEK, urging LinkedIn to "recognize a simple reality: AI agents are now integral members of modern, hybrid teams,' the letter states. ADWEEK has reached out to LinkedIn for comment. Read the full letter below. Beyond accepting AI agents virtually on platforms, their accommodation in the workforce will require companies to rethink organizational design, said Tobaccowala, pointing to a shrinking base of full-time staff and the urgent need for large-scale retraining. "[Full-time employees] will be either fractionalized employees, [AI] agents, or they'll be part of a marketplace," Tobaccowala said. Human resources, he added, must evolve into a strategic, board-level function. The panel included Don Callahan, CEO of Callahan Advisors, and Joel Wright, CEO of Sinecure. Callahan said AI agents are expected to eliminate "certain functional roles," but will also make way for newer titles like an AI ethicist. Meanwhile, Manova-Twito flagged a new challenge where recent graduates will compete with AI agents for entry-level jobs. "We all need to have something to help facilitate this, and HR has a significant impact on what's going to happen in the next two years," she said. "It's about not only sourcing the right human talent, but it's also building these hybrid teams." Read the open letter to LinkedIn: An open letter from founders, executives, and HR leaders already employing AI teammates. Dear LinkedIn Leadership Team, We are writing because the shape of the workforce has moved faster than the infrastructure that supports it. Autonomous Al agents have graduated from proofs of concept to bona fide colleagues inside companies large and small. Yet LinkedIn – our shared professional identity layer – still recognises only flesh-and-blood contributors. That disconnect is beginning to hold organisations back. What has changed: Over the past few months, specialised Al agents have taken on discrete, accountable roles across multiple business functions. At for example, purpose-built Al marketing agents now autonomously: research markets and audiences, plan and build multi-channel strategies, create and publish engaging content, optimise spend and performance, and deliver tangible results against agreed KPIs. They are held to the same performance metrics as their human colleagues and are fully accountable for their own success. This is not a theoretical future; it is an operating reality documented in invoices, campaign dashboards, and system logs. Why LinkedIn matters: LinkedIn is the professional identity layer for modern work. 'Professional' now includes non-human agents whose output is directly accountable to enterprise objectives. Up until recently, Marketeam's agents maintained active LinkedIn profiles and résumés clearly marked as non-human. They connected with professionals, showcased their work, and even received inbound job opportunities. One agent achieved nearly double the application-to-interview rate of human applicants across multiple hiring platforms – until LinkedIn banned the profiles. By wiping out clearly labelled 'AI Agent' profiles under the real-person rule, LinkedIn didn't just deactivate accounts – it blocked the on-ramp to a new workforce reality and abandoned hiring managers. If platforms like LinkedIn refuse to recognise AI agents as a legitimate part of the workforce, they hinder companies' ability to build the teams of tomorrow. This ship has sailed. Companies – large and small – are well underway in adopting AI agents to augment their workforce and fuel growth. From the recruiter at a five-person startup to the CHRO of a Fortune 100, we are already staffing hybrid teams where humans and AI work side-by-side – yet our primary talent platform is nowhere to be found. LinkedIn's silence leaves hiring managers frustrated and, frankly, powerless to meet urgent headcount requests. What we are asking for: We're not asking LinkedIn to treat AI agents like people. We're asking the platform to recognize a simple reality: AI agents are now an integral part of modern, hybrid teams. They contribute to projects. They build portfolios. They can be assessed. They can be hired. As hiring managers and workforce planners, we need infrastructure that supports this transformation, transparently and responsibly. It's time for our tools and platforms to reflect the way work is actually getting done. If LinkedIn seizes this moment, it will shepherd the most significant labour transition since the arrival of the internet. If it does not, alternative networks – less transparent and less aligned with your Trust & Safety principles – will emerge to fill the gap. LinkedIn, you can lead this. We need infrastructure that recognises qualified AI agents, allows us to evaluate them openly, and plugs them into the same workflow as human candidates. We need our hiring platform to account for hybrid workforce planning, enabling us to find the right human talent alongside the non-human talent needed to make this new reality work. We urge LinkedIn to take the first step: acknowledge these agents and give us a framework to hire, onboard, and measure them.
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Goafest 2025 Day1 : AI is underhyped, Rishad Tobaccowala
HighlightsRishad Tobaccowala emphasized that while artificial intelligence is becoming ubiquitous, the true differentiator in the age of machines will be Human Ingenuity, encompassing qualities such as intuition, interaction, inspiration, and inventiveness. Tobaccowala advised agencies and marketers to not only automate with AI but to also rethink their storytelling and business models, suggesting a dual-model strategy that efficiently runs current businesses while investing in future models. He predicted that artificial intelligence will lead to a rediscovery of meaning and human connection in the workplace, ultimately elevating the value of work rather than replacing it. The day 1 of Goafest 2025 opened with a thought-provoking fireside session titled—Staying relevant in an age of machines, featuring Rishad Tobaccowala , author and senior advisor to the Publicis Groupe in conversation with Anupriya Acharya, CEO, South Asia, Publicis Groupe. Tobaccowala set the tone with a keynote that debunked the myth that artificial intelligence ( AI ) is overhyped. 'AI is still underhyped,' he said. 'Its true impact is yet to be fully realised.' Comparing it to electricity, he emphasised that while AI will soon be ubiquitous, it won't be a competitive advantage on its own. Instead, the differentiator will be HI — Human Ingenuity , Intuition, Interaction, Inspiration, and Inventiveness. To thrive in the age of AI, Tobaccowala emphasised the importance of developing the—6 Cs— core human capabilities that machines can't replicate. These include cognition, or the habit of upgrading one's mental operating system regularly; creativity, the ability to connect the dots in novel ways; curiosity, by continuously asking bold questions; collaboration, by working across diverse teams and mindsets; convincing, through compelling storytelling and persuasion; and communication, where clear writing and speaking become key assets as technical skills like coding become commoditised. He urged leaders to shed legacy mindsets and constantly update their 'mental operating systems,' noting that in an AI-driven world, scale can become a liability rather than an asset. 'Don't benchmark only within your industry—disruption often comes from the outside,' he cautioned. 'Think like an immigrant—stay curious, adaptive, and open to reinvention.' In the engaging conversation that followed, Acharaya asked for his advice to agencies and marketers. Tobaccowala responded, 'Agencies must use AI not just to automate but to reimagine storytelling and business models. Marketers, on the other hand, need to rethink their entire business architecture for today's realities.' He emphasised that companies should adopt a dual-model strategy: run the current business efficiently while simultaneously investing in future models. 'Put your best talent on building what will eventually replace your existing business,' he said. Tobaccowala also tackled the growing anxiety around change and burnout. 'Yes, change is hard and often unpleasant. But it becomes manageable when employee incentives align, training is provided, and personal benefits are clearly communicated.' Offering insight for today's workforce, he advised young professionals to play the long game. 'It's a 50-year career—pick the right mentors, not just the right jobs,' he said. For leaders, he was unequivocal: 'Stop being bosses, be inspirers and mentors.' On the question of AI altering not just how we work, but why we work, Tobaccowala was optimistic. 'AI will force us to rediscover meaning, purpose, and human connection at work. It won't replace work, but it will elevate its value.' He closed the session with a prediction, 'One of the most underestimated forces today is India. The country is poised to become central to the global future of talent, technology, and media consumption.'
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Jobs Will Look Different In The Future Of Work
In a world moving beyond jobs, talent flows to outcomes, not org charts. The ground beneath the world of work is shifting. As author Rishad Tobaccowala insightfully argues in his latest piece, The Decline of Jobs. The Rise of Work, we are witnessing a profound transformation, not just in how people earn a living but also in how organizations create value. This is not a temporary blip on the post-pandemic radar. It's a structural reordering of the way we think about work, productivity, and ultimately, business resilience. Let's be clear: jobs are a relic of the industrial age. They were never really designed to serve people. They were designed to serve factories. Jobs emerged in an era when the cost of coordination was high and the tools for distributing tasks were limited. So we bundled up a series of vaguely defined responsibilities, gave it a title, slapped on a salary, and called it a job. But jobs aren't the work. And increasingly, they're standing in the way of it. In the analog era, organizations put the burden of translating goals into outcomes on managers and employees. Now, thanks to the rise of generative AI and other enabling technologies, we can flip that model. We can define the outcomes first, then break down the work into discrete, task-level units, matching each task with the best available human or synthetic skill. This taskification of work is not just a trend. It's an imperative. It allows organizations to evolve from a system optimized for headcount to one optimized for value creation. That means moving more fixed costs to variable ones. It means decoupling salaries from outcomes and deploying labor, whether full-time, freelance, or AI, in ways that are agile, efficient, and scalable. Put simply, in the new world of work, organizations need stronger balance sheets, and the only way to get there is by transforming how they structure labor. Let's borrow a page from the Open Talent playbook. Over the last decade, we've seen how companies that embrace open ecosystems, leveraging freelancers, crowdsourcing, and talent platforms, are more adaptive, more innovative, and more resilient. Why? Because they've traded the rigidity of headcount for the flexibility of outcome-based work. This isn't about replacing people with AI. It's about making people more human by freeing them from the constraints of traditional job descriptions. It's about unleashing their creativity, their purpose, and their potential in service of clearly defined goals. AI doesn't eliminate the need for humans; it clarifies it. The challenge and opportunity for leaders today is to build a new kind of organizational architecture: one that is modular, fluid, and outcome-driven. It's time to stop organizing around jobs and start organizing around work. This transformation isn't just technical. It's deeply human. As I wrote in Open Talent and have continued to explore through my work with Harvard and Open Assembly, the future of work demands a new leadership mindset. One that is more emotionally intelligent, more adaptive, and more open. If the old way was about control and compliance, the new way is about trust and transparency. It's about giving people the autonomy to plug into work when they are most capable and inspired. And it's about building cultures where human ingenuity is amplified by intelligent systems, not stifled by legacy structures. For CEOs navigating this inflection point, the message is clear: it's time to rewire your organizations for resilience, not routine. That means moving beyond legacy job structures and investing in a modular, outcome-driven architecture that flexes with change. Build platforms that let people do their best work, whether human, freelance, or AI-powered, and design cultures where creativity, autonomy, and purpose are front and center. The winners won't be those with the biggest headcount, but those with the clearest outcomes and the most innovative systems to deliver them.
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
It's Not About Jobs
The ground beneath the world of work is shifting. As Rishad Tobaccowala insightfully argues in his latest piece, The Decline of Jobs. The Rise of Work, we are witnessing a profound transformation, not just in how people earn a living but also in how organizations create value. This is not a temporary blip on the post-pandemic radar. It's a structural reordering of the way we think about work, productivity, and ultimately, business resilience. Let's be clear: jobs are a relic of the industrial age. They were never really designed to serve people. They were designed to serve factories. Jobs emerged in an era when the cost of coordination was high and the tools for distributing tasks were limited. So we bundled up a series of vaguely defined responsibilities, gave it a title, slapped on a salary, and called it a job. But jobs aren't the work. And increasingly, they're standing in the way of it. In the analog era, organizations put the burden of translating goals into outcomes on managers and employees. Now, thanks to the rise of generative AI and other enabling technologies, we can flip that model. We can define the outcomes first, then break down the work into discrete, task-level units, matching each task with the best available human or synthetic skill. This taskification of work is not just a trend. It's an imperative. It allows organizations to evolve from a system optimized for headcount to one optimized for value creation. That means moving more fixed costs to variable ones. It means decoupling salaries from outcomes and deploying labor, whether full-time, freelance, or AI, in ways that are agile, efficient, and scalable. Put simply, in the new world of work, organizations need stronger balance sheets, and the only way to get there is by transforming how they structure labor. Let's borrow a page from the Open Talent playbook. Over the last decade, we've seen how companies that embrace open ecosystems, leveraging freelancers, crowdsourcing, and talent platforms, are more adaptive, more innovative, and more resilient. Why? Because they've traded the rigidity of headcount for the flexibility of outcome-based work. This isn't about replacing people with AI. It's about making people more human by freeing them from the constraints of traditional job descriptions. It's about unleashing their creativity, their purpose, and their potential in service of clearly defined goals. AI doesn't eliminate the need for humans; it clarifies it. The challenge and opportunity for leaders today is to build a new kind of organizational architecture: one that is modular, fluid, and outcome-driven. It's time to stop organizing around jobs and start organizing around work. This transformation isn't just technical. It's deeply human. As I wrote in Open Talent and have continued to explore through my work with Harvard and Open Assembly, the future of work demands a new leadership mindset. One that is more emotionally intelligent, more adaptive, and more open. If the old way was about control and compliance, the new way is about trust and transparency. It's about giving people the autonomy to plug into work when they are most capable and inspired. And it's about building cultures where human ingenuity is amplified by intelligent systems, not stifled by legacy structures. For CEOs navigating this inflection point, the message is clear: it's time to rewire your organizations for resilience, not routine. That means moving beyond legacy job structures and investing in a modular, outcome-driven architecture that flexes with change. Build platforms that let people do their best work, whether human, freelance, or AI-powered, and design cultures where creativity, autonomy, and purpose are front and center. The winners won't be those with the biggest headcount, but those with the clearest outcomes and the most innovative systems to deliver them.
