Agentic AI: What Leaders Wish They Knew Sooner

As AI agents go beyond the hypothetical and enter actual workflows, many leaders see a gap between the promise and the reality. Are the agents ready? Moreover, are the humans? At the 2026 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, we sought expert perspective and advice. We asked technology and business leaders, “What have you learned this year about humans and agentic AI working together?”

What came back wasn’t a technology story but a management story.

Thomas H. Davenport, a professor at Babson College and a fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, struck a cautionary note. He warned that human-in-the-loop oversight of AI tools is becoming performative: “People are being pestered to approve things rapidly, so they don’t really have a chance to engage.” He worries that most humans simply won’t want to serve as auditors of what AI is doing and asserts that no amount of policy will easily...

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