Agentic AI changes the calculus here, but not in the way most vendor pitches suggest. The pitch usually implies that agentic AI removes the need for careful process discovery, that a sufficiently capable model can just “figure out” a messy, undocumented process on its own. In practice, the opposite is true: agentic systems are more sensitive to process quality than rule-based RPA was, not less. This is because an agent makes judgment calls at each step based on context, and bad context—such as an undocumented exception path, an approval rule nobody wrote down, or a company code that behaves differently from the other nineteen—can lead to confidently wrong decisions rather than an obvious failure that a human would catch.
What agentic AI does change is what becomes possible after discovery: rule-based RPA could only automate the parts of a process with entirely predictable branching logic, which meant the exception-heavy, judgment-dependent 20–30% of most GBS workflows stayed manual regardless of how much of the tower got automated.
Saved annually across network ops and finance teams
Annual cost reduction in manual processing overhead
Reduction in reconciliation errors at month-end close
Faster financial close cycle (from 8 days to 3 days)
Reduction in average creative campaign handoff lag
Agency coverage achieved — all 70+ integrated in phase rollout
Reduction in processing time
Manual working days eliminated
EU plants processed consistently
Sequential costing steps executed autonomously
Audit trail completeness
Annual volume growth absorbed without adding headcount
Most GBS leaders can point to one tower they suspect is the weakest link, but few have a structured, tower-by-tower view of where manual effort is actually concentrated — the view you need before committing budget to any transformation initiative, agentic AI or otherwise.
A focused conversation with our automation and AI experts can help you identify where operational friction is concentrated across your shared services environment, evaluate the processes with the strongest automation potential, and determine where a focused transformation initiative could deliver measurable value first.