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Accenture envisions a radically transformed, autonomous workplace reshaped by gen AI agents. But what does this look like, and what will it take to make it a reality?

Since the last edition, we've reviewed hundreds of the latest insights on best practices, case studies, and innovation. Here’s the top 1%...

In today’s edition:

• Accenture envisions the future with gen AI agents.

• Transforming industries with vertical AI agents.

• Nvidia unveils vision for AI agents at CES 2025.

• How LinkedIn built its AI hiring assistant with open models.

• Transformation and technology in the news.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

ENTERPRISE TRANSFORMATION

Accenture envisions the future with gen AI agents

Brief: Accenture’s 67-slide report, authored by CTO Karthik Narain and his research team, envisions a profoundly different, autonomous workplace reshaped by gen AI agents, and explores what it takes to build this future.

Breakdown:

• As gen AI becomes central to enterprise tech, development costs drop and new systems emerge. 77% of execs agree agents will reinvent systems.

• AI agents can personalize at scale but risk brand homogenization. 80% of leaders worry chatbots sound generic, challenging differentiation efforts.

• Robots with embedded LLMs have generalist versatility, moving past pre-programmed limits. 74% of leaders see the promise of intelligent robots.

• Gen AI empowers employees by amplifying their capabilities, creating a feedback loop that expands the autonomy of people and AI over time.

• Leaders see the challenges of creating this future, including high upfront investments, data quality, new skills, and most importantly, building trust.

Why it’s important: Leaders must prepare for a world where AI is everywhere and acting autonomously on behalf of people. Forward-thinking enterprises are already leveraging this transitional period to invest in building the trust needed for innovation, growth and making this future a reality.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

Transforming industries with vertical AI agents

Brief: The University of Chicago’s 31-page paper authored by Fouad Bousetouane attempts to define a level of standardization for vertical AI agent design patterns and examines practical use cases across industry.

Breakdown:

• The paper explores how vertical AI agents are emerging as a critical innovation to address the limitations of traditional SaaS platforms.

• Agents are differentiated by their potential for advanced domain-specific intelligence and flexibility to adapt to evolving scenarios.

• Task-specific, multi-agent, and human-augmented agentic system patterns are explored, leveraging agent(s) to automate complex work.

• It details multi-agent systems' architecture patterns such as RAG Orchestrated Multi-Agent Systems (see image above).

• Practical use cases for multi-agent systems investigated include enterprise reporting, legal case analysis, financial portfolio management, and more.

Why it’s important: The rise of agentic systems with LLMs as the cognitive backbone signals a paradigm shift in enterprise software and automation. This paper is a valuable resource for understanding foundational concepts, architecture patterns, and practical use cases in industry.

INNOVATION INSIGHT

Nvidia unveils vision for AI agents at CES 2025

Brief: Nvidia shared its ambitious vision for AI agents at CES 2025, alongside major hardware, software, and robotics announcements. CEO Jensen Huang called AI agents a “multi-trillion-dollar opportunity.”

Breakdown:

• Nvidia introduced the Llama Nemotron and Cosmos Nemotron model families, purpose-built for agentic AI applications.

• An early-access blueprint for AI agents enables advanced video and image analysis, integrating agentic features like reasoning, tools, and more.

• Introduced RTX Blackwell GPUs, with the $2,000 5090 chip doubling the performance of its predecessor, positioning it as the “world’s fastest GPU.”

• Unveiled Cosmos, an open platform of world foundation models for robotics and autonomous vehicles, freely available to developers.

• Announced Toyota partnership with plans to integrate AI systems into autonomous vehicle development.

Why it’s important: Reknowned for its chips, Nvidia continues to benefit from the rapid build-out of data centers. With AI set to transform knowledge work through agents and the physical world via robotics and autonomous vehicles, Nvidia is positioning itself for sustained, potentially unparalleled growth.

CASE STUDY

LinkedIn built its hiring assistant with open models

Brief: LinkedIn detailed how it built its AI Hiring Assistant with EON (Economic Opportunity Network), a set of custom models that improve candidate-role matching accuracy and efficiency.

Breakdown:

• EON's custom Meta Llama models were trained on 200M tokens from LinkedIn's Economic Graph, including member and company data.

• Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) techniques were used for safety alignment.

• LinkedIn adapted foundation models like Llama and Mistral, evaluating them on open-source and LinkedIn benchmarks (see image above).

• LinkedIn found EON-8B (based on Llama 3.1) to be 75x cheaper than GPT-4, 6x cheaper than GPT-4o, and 30% more accurate than Llama-3.

• LinkedIn is now enhancing its EON models with planning and reasoning capabilities to enable more personalized, agentic interactions.

Why it’s important: To capture ROI, enterprises are increasingly exploring the cost and customization benefits of open-source models. LinkedIn's EON showcases how in-house gen AI innovation with domain-adapted foundation models can improve the recruiter-candidate experience while reducing costs.

IBM published the second edition of 'The CEO’s Guide to Generative AI,' a 76-page report detailing what leaders need to know and do to succeed with the transformative technology.

McKinsey leaders shared insights on how organizations can maximize tech opportunities in 2025, covering eight topics ranging from tech talent strategies to gen AI agents and lessons learned from Asia.

EY introduced its Generative AI Maturity Model, designed to help enterprises assess their current AI maturity across seven dimensions, identify gaps, and develop a roadmap for advancement.

KPMG's new AI Quarterly Pulse Survey reveals organizations are doubling down on AI investments, with over half exploring the use of AI agents as momentum continues to grow.

NASA released a blog with an inventory of its production deployments in 2024, including applications in Mars rover navigation and environmental monitoring.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a blog titled ‘Reflections’, revealing that the company believes they know how to build AGI and is now setting its sights on developing superintelligent systems.

Anthropic is reportedly nearing a new $2B funding round at a $60B valuation, marking an over 3x rise from the company’s $18B valuation last year.

Samsung revealed its new "AI for All" tagline at CES 2025, introducing a suite of new AI products across its entire ecosystem, including new AI-powered TVs, appliances, PCs, and more.

OpenAI is reportedly aiming for the release of its 'Operator’ autonomous AI agent this month, which has faced launch delays over prompt injection security concerns.

Google unveiled an AI-powered TV system that uses Gemini to generate automated news summaries from online sources including YouTube.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Samsung - Director, GenAI

Anthropic - AI Safety Fellow

Warner Bros - Sr Director, AI Lab

EVENTS

Section - Human Superpowers - January 29, 2025

Autonomous - Virtual Summit - January 29 - 30, 2025

MIT - Gen AI for Design - May 2, 2025

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