Digital workers: The CIO’s new IT multiplier

Steven

Digital workers: The CIO’s new IT multiplier

Summary

AI-driven “digital workers” or agentic AI are emerging as goal-oriented virtual employees able to execute multi-step IT workflows autonomously, freeing human staff for strategic work. Unlike simple assistants that respond to single commands, digital workers can break projects into tasks, act with assigned permissions and SLAs, and complete end-to-end processes across areas such as DevOps, cybersecurity, cloud management and service desk operations.

The article explains how CIOs can treat digital workers as workforce multipliers — not mere cost-cutting tools — by embedding them into operating models, establishing governance, tracking KPIs and running staged pilots. It stresses the need for identity, access controls, auditability and human escalation paths, and outlines practical steps to deploy digital workers safely and effectively while preparing the organisation for evolving AIOps and new roles like AI supervisors and automation architects.

Key Points

  1. Digital workers are agentic AI that can autonomously execute multi-step IT workflows, not just single-command assistants.
  2. They multiply IT output by removing bottlenecks, reducing variance and handling repetitive, data-driven tasks across DevOps, security and infrastructure.
  3. Successful deployment requires identity management, least-privilege permissions, SLAs, monitoring and defined workflows for each digital worker.
  4. Governance is essential: ownership, permissible actions, logging, auditable decisions and a human escalation path must be in place.
  5. Start small: run digital workers in assist mode, pilot low-risk, high-volume processes, assess integration readiness and scale with a roadmap.
  6. CIOs should upskill teams in AI supervision and automation engineering and shift operating models to hybrid human-AI collaboration.
  7. Future IT will trend toward AIOps and predictive, self-healing systems; new roles will appear while some manual tasks fade.

Why should I read this?

Want more done from your IT floor without hiring a small army? This piece cuts through the buzz and shows how agentic AI can actually multiply output — if you treat digital workers like employees, not toys. It’s short, practical and full of concrete steps to get started without breaking things.

Context and relevance

This article is highly relevant to CIOs and IT leaders planning near-term automation strategies. Agentic AI is shifting from point automation to autonomous, goal-driven workflows; organisations that adopt robust governance, identity controls and staged pilots stand to gain reliability, reduced backlog and improved service levels. The trends feed into broader AIOps momentum and will reshape roles, skills and operating models across IT.

Source

Source: https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Digital-workers-The-CIOs-new-IT-multiplier