Agentic AI: The Key to Boosting Productivity and Reducing Burnout in Australia

The Rise of Agentic AI

The rise of agentic AI could help Australia address its low productivity growth problem while overcoming a burnout epidemic in the country, according to intelligent automation technology provider UiPath.

Australia’s productivity growth averaged just 1.2% throughout the 2010s. However, Australia’s Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, noted that the Federal Treasury has downgraded its long-run forecasts for productivity from 1.5% to 1.2%. He has said “there is no more important structural problem” to fix in the economy.

Burnout: A Growing Concern in Australia

Burnout may be a factor impacting workplace productivity. A survey of 1,000 full-time office workers by recruiter Robert Half found that 80% of Australians were experiencing some level of burnout in 2024. These findings are supported by Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend Index, which revealed that 62% of Australian workers were burned out, higher than the global average of 48%.

Agentic AI: The Solution to Burnout and Low Productivity

Yelena Galstian, UiPath’s local head of solutions and customer advisory, told TechRepublic that leveraging AI and automation could help organisations attain productivity gains. It could also help individuals reduce burnout by providing more balance through technology support for manual tasks.

What is Agentic AI?

Agentic AI is viewed as the next step in automation. IBM combines planning, memory, tool usage, and autonomous actions to perform various workplace tasks. IBM envisions a future with armies of agents that can interact with humans and perform autonomous actions.

Galstian said agentic AI, named one of Gartner’s top 10 trends this year, enables automation to expand into decision-making tasks. AI agents will no longer rely on humans to outline problem-solving steps. They can reason independently and interact with tools, such as robotic automation systems, to perform actions.

AI Agents Poised to Handle More Cognitive Steps

Previously, process automation technologies were leveraged to ease the burden of workers completing rules-based tasks, such as data extraction and entry. Galstian noted how the invoice dispute resolution process allowed some tasks to be performed by automation to cut down on time.

“Anything that would have been about reading and processing the invoice and entering it into systems, anything that would have been about a quick reply, or entering the result into the final finance systems; all of those types of things are classic automation skills,” Galstian explained.

However, as these agents become more advanced in the coming years, they can handle more cognitive steps in a process. They will determine appropriate resolutions independently, involving humans only for escalations, clarifications, or when specific criteria require human oversight.

Applications Across Multiple Industries

Galstian said UiPath was seeing some excitement in the Australian market about agentic AI technologies.

“There are so many areas [where it can be applied],” Galstian said.

“It’s like the last mile of AI transformation; wherever the processing would have been more about streamlining the process, and there would have been a lot more, I suppose, human intervention that would be required. These are the kinds of processes that are now available for automation.”

Which Industries Stand to Benefit from AI?

Several industries could benefit from agentic AI technologies, according to UiPath.

Manufacturing: Manufacturing use cases will be “quite large” in Australia, Galstian said, making traditionally challenging supply chain and logistics planning tasks easier to manage.

Retail: Agentic AI could take the Australian retail sector’s ability to market and sell “one step further” by orchestrating more hyper-personalised sales and marketing initiatives.

Professional Services: Human and virtual agents could work together in professional services, with agents helping with tasks such as analysing financial reports.

Health Care: Galstian sees multiple use cases for AI agents in Australian health care, such as analysing health results or assisting with patient management.

UiPath’s Global Knowledge Worker Survey released earlier this year, which included Australian knowledge worker respondents, found that the global workforce is experiencing burnout. Almost a third (32%) of employees worldwide said they “felt extremely” or “very” burnt out, compared with 29% in 2023.

“A very large cohort of Australian organisations participated in the survey,” Galstian said. “The statistics showed there was so much strain on employees and burnout. A big support for that was that Australian workers were looking for how AI and automation could help them alleviate some of that stress.”

More than half (55%) of global respondents to the UiPath survey indicated a reduced workload would help, while over a third (37%) want more time and bandwidth to get their tasks completed, the door seems to be open for AI agents to support workers with tasks if it makes their lives easier.

Conclusion

The rise of agentic AI could help Australia address its low productivity growth problem while overcoming a burnout epidemic in the country. By leveraging AI and automation, organisations can attain productivity gains and individuals can reduce burnout by providing more balance through technology support for manual tasks.

FAQs

Q: What is agentic AI? Agentic AI is a new type of AI that combines planning, memory, tool usage, and autonomous actions to perform various workplace tasks.

Q: How will agentic AI help with burnout? Agentic AI can help reduce burnout by providing more balance through technology support for manual tasks, allowing individuals to have more time and bandwidth to focus on higher-value tasks.

Q: Which industries stand to benefit from agentic AI? Several industries, including manufacturing, retail, professional services, and health care, could benefit from agentic AI technologies.

Q: How can organisations get started with agentic AI? Organisations can start by identifying areas where they already see the potential for automation and focusing on those areas to achieve productivity gains.

Q: What are the benefits of agentic AI? The benefits of agentic AI include increased productivity, reduced burnout, and improved efficiency in various industries.