Chief AI officers are increasingly common in today’s C-suites. But technology consulting firm Genpact is taking things one step further with a “Global Agentic AI Officer.”
AI agents are what really differentiates the technology as a true breakthrough, says Jinsook Han, the company’s chief strategy, corporate development, and global agentic AI officer. As revolutionary as generative AI was, Han says the value wasn’t fully there, whereas agents can make a real difference for the company and its customers.
“From our client service and capabilities perspective, the previous sort of permutations of AI were very limiting,” she said. “Yes, there was analytics, digital transformation, AI, and ML. But it was not until GenAI started coming up and now, agentic AI—now it’s truly a gift for an industry like ours.”
So how does Han’s role fit into the bigger leadership picture at companies? And how does she center strategy in the company’s agentic pursuits?
Han, who joined Genpact a year ago, views her mandate as both horizontal and vertical, working with leaders across the company on agentic AI as well as overseeing development of its agentic AI services.
One of her closest counterparts is chief technology and innovation officer Sanjeev Vohra, who defines the company’s architectural direction, making her both “his peer and customer.” Together, they also co-chair the Genpact Architectural Review Board, where they classify all of the company’s agentic solutions and review them for adherence to internal standards from design through the execution.
She also works closely with Vidya Rao, the company’s chief information and transformation officer. They collaborate on applying agentic AI efforts internally within the company, including treating it as “client zero” as a way to test its offerings.
“So basically, I work with everyone in the organization to make sure it’s both horizontal and vertical. And if people say, ‘Jinsook, does this work with strategy. Is it okay?’ Let me actually take off my agentic AI hat and put on the strategy hat, and I can give you the same answer coming from the same person.”
The Pokémon approach to AI agents
Han’s multi-title role of heading up strategy and agentic AI really morphs into one when she starts talking in-the-weeds of how to actually develop and deploy the technology. That’s why she isn’t fond of the term “human in the loop,” a go-to phrase among executives for asserting that they’re not simply letting AI technology operate freely without any human involvement.
“It makes it sound like, oh, you enter any human in any part of the loop, and it’s going to work out. Whereas, do you really need a human in this loop? When the human actually goes in to look at it, what is the human doing? Is the human reshaping, creating, proctoring? What type of a human do you need? How’s the human from yesterday to today different?” Han said, going on to list more strategic questions about how such human involvement should actually play out.
Instead, she prefers to talk about agent deployment like Pokémon cards, inspired by her son. With both, you’re managing a fleet, and each individual has its own strengths and weaknesses, she said. This means they’re best-suited for different tasks and scenarios, and when used in different combinations, may lead to different outcomes. When broken down like that, it’s a lot more to think through.
“The reason why I use this in a metaphor is because you gotta know what the battle count of each agent is,” she said. “And it’s not static.”