Unlike static, rules-based systems, AI agents can learn, adapt, and optimize processes dynamically. As they interact with data, systems, people, and other agents in real time, AI agents can execute entire workflows autonomously. But unlocking their potential requires redesigning processes around agents rather than bolting them onto fragmented legacy workflows using traditional optimization methods. Companies must become agent first. DOWNLOAD THE ARTICLE In an agent-first enterprise, AI systems operate processes while humans set goals, define policy constraints, and handle exceptions. “You need to shift the operating model to humans as governors and agents as operators,” says Scott Rodgers, global chief […]

To improve data center efficiency, multiple storage devices are often pooled together over a network so many applications can share them. But even with pooling, significant device capacity remains underutilized due to performance variability across the devices. MIT researchers have now developed a system that boosts the performance of storage devices by handling three major sources of variability simultaneously. Their approach delivers significant speed improvements over traditional methods that tackle only one source of variability at a time. The system uses a two-tier architecture, with a central controller that makes big-picture decisions about which tasks each storage device performs, and […]

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Within Silicon Valley’s orbit, an AI-fueled jobs apocalypse is spoken about as a given. The mood is so grim that a societal impacts researcher at Anthropic, responding Wednesday to a call for more optimistic visions of AI’s future, said there might be a recession in the near term and a “breakdown of the early-career ladder.” Her less-measured colleague Dario Amodei, the company’s CEO, has called AI “a general labor substitute for humans” that could do all jobs […]