The Agent Works. Does Anyone Trust It? — Michele Grant, Leading at Scale

An agent's reports match the analysts' work during a pilot, yet the steering committee still has to decide whether it should operate in a core business process. Michele Grant uses an illustrative acquisition integration scenario to examine that decision. The question moves beyond technical accuracy to measurable value, accountable ownership and evidence for greater authority. A faster report is useful only if it changes a decision or releases capacity that the organization actually redeploys. Her framework starts with a baseline for reporting time, analyst capacity, operating cost and the detection of material issues, so an attractive demo does not become its own business case. Grant separates the people who operate the workflow, oversee its risk and provide independent assurance. A Human Works Standard records what the agent may do, where human judgment remains necessary and who must intervene when something goes wrong. An auditable decision log, a maintained inventory of agents and dependencies, and an autonomy scorecard make those boundaries reviewable. Financial calculations stay in deterministic code while the model helps with narrative and interpretation. Authority advances through shadow operation, reviewed drafts, exception handling with sampling and finally exception focused review supported by independent checks. At that last stage, missed issues matter as much as flagged ones. A falling override rate can reflect weaker review rather than better performance. The acquisition values and capacity examples explain the operating framework; they are not disclosed results from a completed deployment or proof that the agent created the projected synergies. Speaker info: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelegrantleadership/ Timestamps: 00:00 - From a working agent to organizational trust 2:34 - An illustrative acquisition integration scenario 4:47 - Measure value against a baseline 6:29 - Accountability across three lines of ownership 8:14 - The Human Works Standard 9:54 - Decision logs and the agent inventory 11:51 - Four stages of autonomy 12:50 - Independent sampling and missed issues 13:29 - What the framework lets leaders decide