Accelerated Innovation

Identifying & Prioritizing Agentic AI Use Cases

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Identifying & Prioritizing Agentic AI Use Cases

Description

Identifying and prioritizing agentic AI use cases means surfacing where intelligent agents can deliver the most value, then evaluating and scoping them for action. It involves aligning opportunities with business goals, assessing feasibility, and creating consistent methods to prioritize what matters most.

Why it's Important

Agentic AI use cases are fundamentally different from traditional automation or GenAI text generation projects. They require cross-functional coordination, clear role and workflow design, and precise decision logic. Without a clear process to identify and prioritize use cases, teams may over-engineer simple tasks or fail to spot where agentic approaches are most valuable. Developing a structured approach ensures resources are directed to initiatives with the highest potential value, feasibility, and long-term impact. Strong use case identification also accelerates solution design, reduces false starts, and ensures alignment with enterprise priorities.

Why it's Challenging @ Scale

  • Lack of clear criteria for what makes a use case “agentic”: Teams often confuse agentic opportunities with basic task automation or text generation.
  • Fragmented intake and evaluation processes: Without standardized scoping methods, use case quality and readiness vary widely across teams.
  • Overemphasis on novelty vs. value: Teams may prioritize technically interesting use cases over those with the most strategic or operational impact.
  • Insufficient cross-functional input: Valuable agentic opportunities are missed when product, operations, and technical teams do not collaborate early.
  • Difficulty sequencing delivery: Even when good use cases are identified, organizations struggle to prioritize and sequence them for implementation.

Complexity

High: Maturing this capability requires developing shared understanding across roles, creating frameworks for use case evaluation, and continuously evolving criteria as agent technologies and business needs advance.

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Taking Action

Though most organizations begin their GenAI journey with significant knowledge gaps, there are targeted actions that can be taken to accelerate the process. Select your group’s current maturity, based on your assessment results, and act today.

The most important part of any journey is starting… To move from “Exploring” to “Experimenting”, focus on the following key actions:
  • Explore Key Concepts & Best Practices: Complete the Building Extensible GenAI Solutions (Routers, Tools & Agents) workshop (2 hrs.) to understand foundational key concepts and explore applied best practices
  • Exploring Extensibility in GenAI Architectures
  • Reviewing Core Router, Tool, and Agent Concepts
  • Identifying Use Cases for Modular Expansion
  • Aligning Extensibility to Business and Tech Goals
  • Planning for Long-Term Maintainability
  • Define Your Action Plan: Outline concrete, prioritized steps your organization will take to implement GenAI Strategy.
  • Align on your Current State and define your Target State
  • Create an actionable enablement plan
  • Define target timeline and measures of success
  • Deliver Quick Wins: Small, high-impact GenAI projects that can demonstrate tangible value in a short time frame.
  • Pilot a Use Case Discovery Workshop: Facilitate a cross-functional session to identify agentic opportunities aligned to business priorities.
  • Test Use Case Scoring Frameworks: Apply value-feasibility scoring to evaluate and compare proposed agentic initiatives.
  • Document 3-5 “Minimum Viable Agent” Concepts: Rapidly scope small-scale agent use cases that can be built and validated quickly.
To move from Experimentation to “Lifting-Off”, prioritize the following actions:
  • Complete one or more of our Deep Dive Courses: Begin exploring key concepts and best practices, including:
  • Core Concepts & Capabilities of AI Agents
  • Selecting Your Agent Architecture
  • Curating Your Agent Data
  • Defining Agent Workflows with Prompts & Outputs
  • Baselining & Optimizing Your Agent Performance
  • Visualizing Agent Interactions & Data
  • Automating & Integrating AI Agents in Workflows
  • Integrating AI Agents into your Business & Go-to-Market Strategy
  • Nail It Before You Scale It: Assess and optimize your solution or process before adopting it at scale
  • Assess Your Proposed Solution or Process: Review existing agentic use case pipeline for relevance, feasibility, and alignment with business goals.
  • Define in-scope Processes and Guardrails: Establish clear inclusion criteria, intake formats, and approval workflows for agent use case selection.
  • Close any Data or Measurement Gaps: Identify where usage data, feasibility indicators, or value signals are missing and establish consistent capture methods.
  • Define Your Adoption & Scaling Plan: Create a structured roadmap for how GenAI solutions will be rolled out across teams, workflows, or business units
  • Define Your Phased Implementation Plan: Map prioritized use cases to delivery waves based on readiness and impact.
  • Build Awareness and Finalize Enablers: Publish use case libraries, success stories, and submission templates to drive engagement.
  • Operationalize Your Comms Plan: Launch an ongoing campaign to source, update, and share agentic use case ideas across teams.
To move from Lifting-Off to “Accelerating”, prioritize the following actions:
  • Formalize Your Best Practices: Document and standardize what’s working to ensure consistent, scalable success across teams and use cases
  • Standardize Use Case Evaluation Frameworks: Finalize scoring models and intake templates to support rapid comparison and prioritization.
  • Build a Central Use Case Repository: Maintain a living database of agentic use cases, tagged by function, complexity, and maturity.
  • Publish Agent Use Case Playbooks: Provide clear guidance on how to scope, assess, and pitch agentic solutions across roles.
  • Accelerate Your Adoption: Intensifying efforts to embed GenAI across your organization by expanding use cases, increasing user engagement, and removing adoption barriers
  • Host Regular Use Case Jam Sessions: Encourage collaborative brainstorming and co-design sessions across departments.
  • Launch a Use Case “Fast Track” Program: Create a path for high-potential agentic ideas to receive rapid validation and build support.
  • Align Use Case Pipelines with Enterprise Goals: Ensure use case development is linked to quarterly business objectives and functional priorities.
  • Celebrate Your Wins: Publicly acknowledge team accomplishments to build and sustain adoption momentum
  • Spotlight High-Impact Use Cases: Share tangible results from early wins in internal comms and leadership forums.
  • Recognize Use Case Contributors: Acknowledge individuals and teams that surface creative or valuable agentic opportunities.
  • Share Use Case Progress Dashboards: Visualize pipeline growth, impact metrics, and conversion rates to build excitement and buy-in.
The “Accelerating” stage represents “Target State” for many capabilities. “Breaking Away”, on the other hand, suggests that the specific Capability represents a clear competitive advantage for your business.
  • Streamline & Embed: Integrate GenAI into core workflows while eliminating friction points to make usage seamless and routine
  • Embed Use Case Discovery into Strategic Planning: Ensure agentic opportunity identification is part of annual and quarterly planning cycles.
  • Integrate with Work Intake Systems: Add agentic evaluation steps into existing product, IT, or innovation intake platforms.
  • Make Use Case Surfacing Self-Service: Enable teams to explore, score, and submit agentic ideas using guided digital tools.
  • Leverage Automation: Using GenAI-powered tools and workflows to streamline repetitive tasks, enhance operational efficiency, and reduce manual effort
  • Automate Use Case Triage: Use GenAI to classify, de-dupe, and route submitted use cases based on domain and readiness.
  • Auto-Generate Initial Scoping Outputs: Leverage AI to draft opportunity summaries, value hypotheses, and architecture starting points.
  • Identify “Lookalike” Use Cases Across Teams: Use pattern detection to surface agentic opportunities that are already working in other parts of the business.
  • Evolve & Further Accelerate: Continuously refining GenAI strategies based on insights and outcomes, while expanding into more complex or high-impact use cases
  • Refine Prioritization Based on Impact Data: Continuously update scoring criteria using performance outcomes and user feedback.
  • Expand into New Domains: Apply agentic use case identification frameworks to emerging functions like supply chain, compliance, or R&D.
  • Benchmark Use Case Velocity Across Business Units: Track the speed and quality of agentic use case delivery across regions or functions.

Key "Watchouts"

As you take action you9ll want to avoid:

  • Scoping overly complex first use cases: Starting with high-risk or high-ambiguity agents can stall momentum.
  • Misclassifying use cases as “agentic”: Some tasks may be better suited for simpler automation or retrieval-based solutions.
  • Prioritizing without business alignment: Use cases disconnected from strategic goals are unlikely to sustain executive support.
  • Failing to revisit prioritization frameworks: Criteria must evolve as agent capabilities, tooling, and team skills mature.
  • Overcentralizing use case ownership: Innovation slows when teams are not empowered to surface and shape their own opportunities.

Targeted Benefits

While Identifying & Prioritizing Agentic AI Use Cases can be challenging, its benefits are clear and compelling, including:

  • Faster time-to-value: Clear prioritization helps teams focus on what matters most and reduce false starts.
  • Stronger alignment to business strategy: Agentic investments directly support measurable enterprise goals.
  • Higher solution quality: Well-scoped use cases result in more effective and sustainable GenAI agent deployments.
  • Scalable use case pipelines: Repeatable evaluation and intake methods enable sustainable growth across functions.
  • Increased cross-functional collaboration: Shared prioritization frameworks improve communication and coordination across roles.

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Eddie
Accelerated Innovation

Hi, I'm Eddie 👋

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