Dan Twing and Tom O'Rourke discuss the evolution from traditional agents to AI-powered agents in enterprise automation software. While automation agents originally served as proxies for remote system operations, AI agents now bring capabilities that enables generative and adaptive responses. Their discussion positions AI agents as an evolution rather than revolution in automation, offering enhanced decision-making capabilities while following similar architectural patterns as traditional agents. Automation leaders should prepare for integration with enterprise systems that have adopted AI agent capabilities, requiring the same coordination, governance and control ofsystems that may have unanticipated behaviors.

Key Points

• Traditional vs. AI Agents: Traditional automation agents operated as delegates for managing remote operations, while AI agents add probabilistic capabilities, LLM intelligence, and generative abilities that enable adaptive decision-making
• Orchestration Evolution: As enterprise software systems adopt AI agent capabilities, automation must evolve to coordinate and orchestrate these intelligent systems while maintaining process integrity.
• Observability: AI-enabled agents can excel at identifying anomalies previously unseen scenarios that may lead to automation service failure
• Integration: Automation teams will need to learn new protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to build integrations with AI-enabled systems where vendors do not offer packaged solutions

Takeaways for Automation Leaders

1. Anticipate Inevitable Adoption: Even organizations that adopt new technologies slowly will eventually wind up with systems that use AI capabilities
2. Start Small: Create a pilot project where AI Agents bring capabilities that aren't available in traditional agents
3. Implement Guardrails: Create testing frameworks around AI agents that canidentify where the agent is operating outside expected behaviors
4. Build Trust Over Time: Expect that it will take time for staff and users to trust AI, begin using AI agents to provide observations and recommendationsthen gradually increase agent independence to allow autonomous execution

Request for Listeners

If you're starting to integrate AI agents into your automation environment, we would really love to hear from you. We want to hear from some automation team who are using AI agents, so if you're doing interesting things, please reach out to us.

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In this episode, hosts Dan Twing and Tom O'Rourke explore the challenges of migrating automation software. They discuss the business and technical drivers for switching to a different automation tool, what makes these projects difficult, and why migration is occurring more frequently. Key Points

• Migration frequency is increasing: Average time on workload automation tools has dropped from 12-15 years to just 4-5 years, reflecting market changes and rapid technology evolution
• Multiple drivers force migration decisions: Key catalysts include cloud capabilities, pricing changes, product limitations, integration gaps, vendor roadmap misalignment, and operational consolidation needs
• Integration complexity and heavy API use creates "stickiness": Enterprise software becomes difficult to replace due to extensive connections to other systems and staff training investments
• Vendor consolidation creates imposed migrations: Acquisitions and end-of-life announcements force unwanted migration decisions, though large customers can sometimes negotiate timeline extensions

Five Learnings

• Production continuity is paramount: Business operations must continue during migration, requiring careful staging and sequencing of which systems to migrate first
• Conversion tools have limitations: Automated migration tools typically handle only basic configurations, while integrations, complex scripting and custom workflows require manual recreation
• Scope decisions are critical: Organizations must decide whether to migrate everything at once, implement in phases, or leave some legacy systems in place permanently
• Cultural resistance must be addressed: Staff resistance to change represents a significant challenge that requires dedicated change management attention

• Professional expertise is essential: Successful migrations typically require either internal team augmentation or external professional services from vendors or specialized partners

Takeaways for Automation Leaders Considering Migration

1. Assess the current automation environment, inventorying workflows and integrations, analyzing the quality of schedule and configuration data, and understanding what knowledge gaps exist in the automation staff and users.
2. Establish migration scope and strategy, considering whether the conversion should include redesign of business and operational workflows, whether all applications should be migrated, and how to maintain production SLAs while building and deploying a new automation system.
3. Evaluate the business continuity, technical, resource and operational risks, creating risk mitigation strategies in advance for scenarios that have a significant likelihood of occurring and which would have a substantial impact on the business or the project.
4. Develop an implementation plan, defining the project timeline, resources and costs, testing and rollback procedures, progress metrics, and how stakeholders and users will be engaged through the project.

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Roy Dreyfus, Senior Director of IT at Market America, discusses his 14-year automation journey with Dan Twing and Tom O'Rourke on the Enterprise Automation Excellence Podcast. Roy shares how Market America has evolved from basic, disconnected automation tools to a sophisticated orchestration platform using HCL Workload Automation (HWA). Market America is now transitioning to HCL's new AI-powered Uno platform, which combines automation with artificial intelligence capabilities.

Key Points

• Evolution from Basic to Advanced Automation: Market America transformed from using simple automation tools starting in 2016 to implementing enterprise-wide orchestration platforms
• Strategic Vendor Partnership: - After their licensing costs tripled, Market America selected HCL HWA based on exceptional pre-sales support and ongoing customer engagement
• Cross-Process Orchestration Value: Roy highlighted a use case building automated metrics and analytics that examine system performance data to provide meaningful insights for business owners and executive leadership

Takeaways for Automation Leaders

• Fear is the Main Barrier: The biggest obstacle to automation adoption is fear rather than technical limitations. People who avoid automation typically haven't invested time in learning about or using these tools
• Start with Partnership: When exploring new automation technologies, work closely with vendors to access their expertise and provide feedback that shapes product development. This collaborative approach ensures better outcomes
• Embrace Experimentation: Companies that want to stay competitive must allow their teams to experiment with automation and AI tools, recognizing that failed experiments still provide valuable learning experiences
• AI Enhances Rather Than Replaces: Successful automation implementation focuses on making human workers more efficient and capable of deeper thinking, rather than eliminating jobs entirely
• Executive Buy-in is Essential: Advanced automation initiatives require top-down support and investment, as sophisticated AI and orchestration tools typically require significant financial commitment and organizational change
• CI/CD Pipeline Automation Opportunity: There's significant potential to automate software development processes, with 6-7% of enterprise automation jobs already focusing on CI/CD pipeline automation

Show Links

Roy Dreyfuss discussing HCL automation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F6Z_3-xfGo

Roy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leroy-dreyfuss-cio/

Dan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantwing/

Tom's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomorourkeEAE Podcast Home: https://em360tech.com/podcast-series/enterprise-automation-excellence

Feedback & Questions: mailto:eaepodcast@emausa.com