Business Agility Redefined: The Smart AI Agent Joins the Workforce
From revolutionizing supply chain operations to transforming sales workflows, autonomous agents are poised to redefine industries and the way businesses operate.
Picture a world where AI doesn't just follow orders but takes the lead-grasping context, learning from outcomes and making independent strategic decisions. This isn't some distant future; it's happening now. Businesses are stepping into a bold new era of transformation, where automation isn't just a tool but is redefining how we think, work and innovate. Welcome to the world of agentic process automation-the key to unparalleled business agility.
"This is groundbreaking because it's not merely an extension of what machines have done in the past, but a gateway to revolutionary new possibilities," says Kenji Motohashi, Head of the Global Generative AI Office at NTT DATA. Motohashi explains that the offices and factories of the near future will soon delegate entire workflows to this advanced iteration of generative AI (Gen AI).
NTT DATA has started implementing these agents to collaborate in complex, multi-stage workflows-and even improve them. For global manufacturers relying on just-in-time processes, autonomous agents offer transformative solutions. "They can detect disruptions in real-time, evaluate potential fixes considering costs, execute them and learn from past outcomes," explains Edmon Tutusaus, Partner for automotive projects at NTT DATA Spain. "This has allowed us to reduce inventories by 15% and improve service by 23%, while limiting human oversight to general supervision."
Smart Agents, Smarter Selling
This technology is transforming the sales industry with a new breed of assistants. "Only about 30% of a salesperson's time is spent on core tasks, such as directly negotiating with clients, while the remaining 70% is consumed by non-core tasks," says Yoshiharu Okuda, Head of the Gen AI Business Strategy Office at NTT DATA. "Our projections suggest we can reduce this non-core workload to around 20%."
To achieve this outcome, NTT DATA collaborates with customers to map workflows, identify sales and marketing processes, ingest data, establish robust governance and train employees to use the Smart AI Agent. In one use case, this initial step spanned two months and in a further four months, NTT DATA's predefined models were tailored to emulate existing workflows. To succeed, these 'automated employees' must model their behavior on that of the best workers-but that know-how consists of hard-won, tacit knowledge that isn't in any manual. Will humans wary of automation resist giving up their secrets?
Okuda counters that the benefits of being released from drudgery will convince employees to cooperate: "Humans will still be needed to ensure decisions are orchestrated appropriately. The ability to supervise and judge AI-driven processes will be a key skill for future professionals."
From Data to Dialogue
Sumitomo Life Insurance has piloted NTT DATA's Smart AI Agent concept to explore personalized customer communications. In this proof of concept, the agent autonomously crafts tailored emails and-after human review-sends the messages to target customers. The Smart AI Agent concept "is designed to serve as a true partner throughout the process, providing comprehensive support from start to finish," says Okuda.
Targeted Marketing Reimagined
Tokyo Gas, one of Japan's leading energy companies, has long employed data-driven strategies to engage with customers. Partnering with NTT DATA, Tokyo Gas developed a modern generative AI system to support the key stages of customer engagement.
By entering basic information such as target products into the AI tool, creative marketing teams can generate solutions optimized for each segment-streamlining everything from target-setting to strategic proposals. These insights allow Tokyo Gas's marketers to segment customer data, hypothesize key attributes or pain points and craft personalized outreach.
Turbocharging the Automotive Industry
The automotive sector is under intense pressure to shorten development cycles, fend off emerging competitors and modernize revenue streams. That makes it an ideal environment for deploying Smart AI Agents, according to Cornelius Walter, CTO Automotive and Head of Gen AI@Auto at NTT DATA.
Over the past year, the automotive Gen AI team at NTT DATA has conducted extensive trials to uncover the true potential of this technology across the entire auto value chain. "In one year, we've seen a clear shift in client priorities. Businesses are moving away from isolated PoCs to broader, domain-wide transformations," Walter explains. "Customers are now asking, 'How can we address an entire domain or renew a complete process area?'"
Two main themes dominate this transformation: The first being renovating vehicle development processes to make them faster, more agile and more efficient; and, the second, building platforms and Smart AI Agent ecosystems to turn vast data reservoirs into actionable insights that enhance customer experiences and strengthen brand positioning.
Megan Wang, Vice President of Digital Marketing at NTT DATA China, elaborates on the latter: "The automotive industry has a wealth of customer data, but the challenge lies in turning it into actionable outcomes. Manufacturers often struggle to bridge the gap between raw data and meaningful insights that drive engagement and loyalty. To support these shifts, we developed a platform called 'Voice of the Customer (VoC)'-an ecosystem that helps manage consumer data and oversee strategic implementation-for a global luxury vehicle manufacturer."
Transforming Customer Engagement with VoC
A luxury car manufacturer faced the challenge of understanding customer sentiment and tailoring their engagement strategies in a highly competitive market. To address this, Megan Wang, Vice President of Digital Marketing at NTT DATA China, led the implementation of a bespoke Voice of the Customer (VoC) ecosystem powered by Smart AI Agent technology.
"Our VoC system creates a closed loop-assigning tasks, tracking resolutions and ensuring cross-regional improvements," she says. "This proactive approach empowers businesses to deliver more personalized and impactful customer experiences"
The Smart Agent Accelerator Hub: Speeding Up AI Agent Innovations
Walter elaborates, "This year, we found ourselves solving similar problems repeatedly for different clients ." To enhance efficiency and scalability, NTT DATA is creating the Smart Agent Accelerator Hub-a centralized repository tailored to the automotive industry. The hub will house a comprehensive library of auto-specific Smart Agents, accelerators like data models, LLMs and SLMs, as well as prototypes and functional industry knowledge. "By harnessing these resources in a plug-and-play manner, we can streamline the development and deployment of future projects," Walter says, "delivering faster, more impactful solutions to benefit our clients."
As clients increasingly prioritize holistic transformation and embrace this new era of transformation, NTT DATA is leveraging its expertise to build comprehensive generative AI programs-developing solutions that are reusable and scalable, and enabling businesses to innovate with greater precision. Walter concludes, "Next year's key themes, speed and efficiency, will show clients we've done it before and can accelerate their transformations while delivering meaningful value."
To learn more about NTT DATA's Gen AI capabilities and use cases, click here.
This article was originally created by Custom Content from WSJ.
