Humans decide, AI agents do the work, says MDEC

KUCHING, 6 Oct: Artificial intelligence (AI) agents could significantly change the way small and medium-sized businesses operate, with more routine work increasingly handled by software while people focus on decisions and judgement.

Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) Chairman Ganesh Kumar Bangah said businesses were moving towards what he described as an agentic workforce, where AI agents take over parts of everyday work.

“Humans will actually start making the decision, will actually start making the judgments that’s needed and become the subject matter expert, but then agents will really do the work,” he said at the International Digital Economy Conference Sarawak (IDECS) 2026.

Ganesh said agentic AI represented the next step after prompt-based AI, with software becoming more autonomous and capable of carrying out tasks without constant human input.

He said businesses could adopt agentic AI in stages, beginning with using agents to assist software development, before moving towards replacing some subscription software, supporting the workforce and eventually redesigning entire work processes around AI.

Ganesh said one example was the rise of one-person companies, where a professional could run a business with AI agents taking over work that might previously have required a larger team.

He cited legal firms as an example, where one lawyer could use AI agents for research, billing and other administrative functions.

“This does not mean that human beings will actually be completely extinct.

“What it means is that human beings will become the people that make the decisions,” he explained.

Ganesh said AI-native businesses could also redesign their entire workflow around agents instead of simply adding AI tools to existing processes.

He said MDEC was working on industry-specific AI playbooks and the National AI Compute Exchange to help lower the cost of adoption and make AI tools more accessible to SMEs. – TVS