As generative AI and agent-based systems move from pilot projects into real operational roles within enterprises, organisations are discovering that new forms of management are essential to harness their full value. A recent Harvard Business Review article argues that just as product managers became crucial during the software era to translate strategy into consistent outcomes, a new class of leaders — “agent managers” — will be indispensable in the AI-driven corporate landscape. These roles focus not on managing people in the traditional sense but on overseeing fleets of autonomous AI agents, tracking performance, governance, risk, and alignment with business goals.
Agent managers — exemplified by roles at companies like Salesforce — spend much of their time on data dashboards, observability tools, and scorecards to monitor how AI agents are performing, improving, and adapting over time. Their responsibilities include defining clear performance metrics, ensuring compliance with policies, and maintaining the AI agents’ effectiveness and safety across evolving workflows. This mirrors how traditional managers would address team performance and development, but here the “team” consists of software agents carrying out multi-step tasks with varying degrees of autonomy.
The rise of agent managers reflects a broader shift in organisational design. Autonomous AI agents are not simply tools but become digital contributors to business operations, requiring lifecycle oversight that includes onboarding, monitoring for bias or errors, recalibration, and eventual decommissioning as needed. Without dedicated leadership, companies risk inconsistency, compliance issues, and unchecked agent behaviour, which could undermine the strategic benefits of AI investments rather than enhance them.
This evolution also highlights how managerial roles are transforming in the AI age. Leaders need to blend traditional coordination skills with data fluency, governance acumen, and strategic oversight over autonomous processes. Just as product managers professionalised software delivery decades ago, agent managers may become standard roles that ensure AI systems deliver reliable, secure, and measurable business value in increasingly complex digital environments.
