Give the Agent a Boss

Cisco, Intuit, Workday, and ServiceNow are all building the same missing piece: a place to manage agents after they leave the demo.

Good.

The fantasy version of agent adoption says the next step is more freedom. Let the software do more. Let it act. Let it move faster.

The real version is less cinematic.

Who owns this agent? What can it touch? What did it do yesterday? Who approved the risky part? Where does the log live? How does the team shut it down when it starts doing the wrong thing politely?

If nobody can answer, the company does not have an agent workforce. It has shadow automation with better branding.

Workday calling for an agent system of record is the right phrase because it changes the frame. Agents are not just tools once they have tasks, permissions, outputs, and consequences. They become operational actors.

Actors need management.

That takes a roster with named owners, permissions, review points, logs, kill switches, and a record people can actually read.

Start by listing the agents already in use and who owns each one. Then decide which are allowed to keep working.