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Your next CEO could be an AI agent. That\u2019s not to say it will be, but US-based R&D outfit Sente Labs has released Open Executive, an open-source AI project that can automate C-suite executive roles. Sente co-founder Alex Cohen explains that the company\u2019s goal \u201cis to transform management and leadership through the power of AI,\u201d and said that Open Executive\u2019s customisability makes it suitable for a wide variety of organisations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While acknowledging that legal and regulatory issues may prevent corporations from appointing Open Executive AIs as their CEOs anytime soon, Cohen nonetheless predicts that businesses will become increasingly comfortable over time with assigning responsibility to Open Executive-based agents. And even though researchers are skeptical that we\u2019ll see organisations hand over full executive control to AIs in the near future, they do affirm that executives may increasingly delegate many tasks and supportive functions to agents.<\/p>\n
Three levels of customisability<\/p>\n
Cohen says that Open Executive provides a \u201chighly customisable\u201d framework, enabling organisations to modify its default personas to the specific roles and functions they require, and to provide agents with differing levels of authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOpen Executive is persona-driven, so it is straightforward to configure it to replicate any leadership or management role,\u201d says Cohen. \u201cFor example, Head of Marketing, Director of Software Engineering, or even a Project Manager.\u201d<\/p>\n
Users can deploy agents at three levels of authority. The highest level is fully autonomous, which organisations will use if they want to completely replace an executive with an agent. The next, intermediate level, involves duplication, creating a double for an executive that syncs with their personal data and apps (e.g. email, Microsoft Teams, Jira) to answer queries and contribute to workflows. Lastly, there is an \u201cexecutive assistant\u201d level of autonomy, in which an agent primarily handles administrative tasks such as scheduling, coordination and routine emails.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognize that autonomous AI leadership is a novel concept,\u201d Cohen says, \u201cso flexibility was essential to allow organizations to adopt a comfort level that suits them. Over time, we anticipate that organisations will grant the system increasing autonomy, though proper initial configuration remains critical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the customisability of Open Executive, Cohen expects that companies will engage with Sente Labs to assist with installation and configuration, although they are free to deploy Open Executive independently. Either way, Cohen suspects that many organisations will take the plunge, given the various advantages it offers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst, by connecting natively to platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Jira, and Confluence, it processes and analyses vast amounts of real-time operational data,\u201d he explains. \u201cFar beyond what an individual human executive could track. It leverages this comprehensive dataset to drive consistent, data-informed decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sente Labs engineered Open Executive for \u201cexplicit\u201d ethical alignment and professionalism, training its model on established accounting practices, business ethics and regulations, and case studies. This potentially makes it more ethical than at least some CEOs, while Cohen also argues that it can make more objective decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile AI-driven leadership is uncommon today, embedding explicitly programmed ethical guardrails into executive decision-making may soon become standard practice, much like adhering to GAAP principles,\u201d he says. \u201cFurthermore, an AI executive operates without ego and with significantly reduced personal bias, allowing it to make key operational decisions based strictly on objective evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a concession, however, that \u201clegal and regulatory considerations\u201d may prevent organisations from enabling agents to act as final decision-makers. Similarly, Cohen acknowledges that AI tools lack human presence, in that they\u2019re unable to interact in a traditional, embodied sense and build strong interpersonal relationships.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Open Executive has one human quality: the ability to \u201cdream.\u201d This amounts to the capacity for some degree of self-reflection, whereby agents regularly analyse their existing plans, while similarly identifying and working to fill gaps in its knowledge sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, it might evaluate our current product offerings, recognise a lack of competitive intelligence, and autonomously research competitors across the web,\u201d Cohen says. \u201cOnce it processes that information, it integrates the findings directly into its own long-term memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ambiguity, trust and relationships<\/p>\n
While Sente Labs is confident in the ability of Open Executive to replace or fill in for CEOs, outside experts have more sober opinions about agentic executives. For Nicos Savva, a professor of management science at the London Business School, the subjectivity inherent to C-suite roles makes them less amenable to full automation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is VERY unlikely with current (or foreseeable) technology,\u201d he says, explaining his skepticism in terms of the \u201cmessiness\u201d of the tasks and responsibilities executives generally have, in that such functions cannot be explicitly articulated or codified.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not to say that AI will not change how these tasks are performed (or indeed who gets to perform them),\u201d he says, \u201cbut for these tasks we are not talking about automation so much as augmentation.\u201d<\/p>\n
This kind of argument crops up repeatedly. According to Imperial Business School\u2019s Dr Ying-Ying Hsieh, AI is likely to serve C-suite executives increasingly in a supportive capacity, enabling them to arrive at more informed decisions. That said, they won\u2019t replace executives, who do considerably more than optimise decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey interpret ambiguous situations, negotiate competing interests, and build trust,\u201d Hsieh explains. \u201cThey also motivate people, exercise judgement under uncertainty, and take responsibility for decisions whose consequences may be difficult to quantify.\u201d<\/p>\n
The element of trust and relationship-building is something that managerial experts highlight time and again. Generally, this element requires physical embodiment, a figurehead that employees and investors can look to, and around which an organisation can organise itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople clearly do trust systems in plenty of contexts,\u201d says Pedro Varela, the Head of AI at consultancy Slalom. \u201cIt\u2019s just that trust in executive leadership specifically involves accountability and relationships, with real stakes attached to a specific responsible party.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Who is responsible for the actions of an agentic CEO?<\/p>\n
Accountability is the other serious issue, and it currently lacks a clear answer given the novelty of the technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWho can a regulator or court actually hold to account when something goes wrong?\u201d Verlea asks, adding that just because an organisation has given an AI system the authority to act, it doesn\u2019t mean the same system assumes legal responsibility for the consequences of its actions.<\/p>\n