I have spent the last few months pondering and analysing the way the uptake of AI in organisations is evolving the role of intrapreneurs.
AI IS MOVING FASTER THAN ORGANISATIONS
AI has given us new tools, new agents, and new promises of productivity. Beyond that, I believe it is also giving us a new way of valuing human agency at work.
Microsoft’s recent Work Trend Index puts a useful frame around this. It found that employees are often moving faster than their organisations. Only 19% of AI users sit in what Microsoft calls the “Frontier” zone, where individual AI capability and organisational readiness reinforce each other. Perhaps the most revealing finding is that organisational factors such as culture, manager support and talent practices account for twice the reported AI impact of individual effort alone. The greatest AI value emerges when capable people are working within systems that recognise initiative, channel it well, and turn it into organisational learning.
This is where intrapreneurial agency becomes the difference between simply using AI and creating value with it.
Agency is the ability to see possibilities, take the initiative, act with purpose and create value.
In an AI world, intrapreneurial agency shows up in very practical ways: in the employee who spots a recurring frustration, uses AI to explore a better approach, tests it in a small, low-risk way, brings colleagues into the conversation, and turns a small local improvement into something the organisation can learn from. No grand innovation theatre. Just a small, disciplined improvement that makes work better. That is intrapreneurial agency in practice. It is the same intrapreneurial discipline we have been teaching for years through our programs at GII: notice the opportunity, test responsibly, build support, and create value.
WHEN AI GIVES TIME BACK, WHERE DOES IT GO?
BCG’s latest global AI at Work report offers some insights flowing from that question. AI adoption is rising quickly, with 74% of frontline employees now using AI regularly. But the more revealing finding is that many employees who save time with AI receive little guidance on how to reinvest that time in higher-value work. So when AI gives time back, where does that time go? Intrapreneurs are the employees with the agency to find value-creating activities.
So rather than asking “How many people in the organisation are using AI?” it might be more useful to ask, “How many people are using AI to make work better?”
Without agency, AI can easily become another layer of activity: more outputs, more checking, more cognitive load, more pressure to keep up. With agency, AI becomes a catalyst. Employees can use it to solve nagging problems, improve customer experience, simplify processes, surface insights and create value that would otherwise remain hidden.
THE LEADERSHIP SHIFT
This also changes the role of leaders. AI transformation will not be sustained by tool rollout alone. It requires leaders who create the conditions for responsible initiative: clear boundaries, psychological safety, meaningful sponsorship, and recognition for people who improve the way work gets done.
THE REAL ADVANTAGE
Intrapreneurial agency gives people the confidence, capability and discipline to work imaginatively within the real constraints of organisational life. As AI becomes more embedded in daily work, the greatest gains are likely to show up in organisations that strengthen this human capacity: the ability to notice what matters, act with purpose, improve the way work gets done, and turn technological possibility into meaningful progress.
At the Global Intrapreneurs Institute, we help organisations develop the intrapreneurial agency their people need to turn possibility into progress. To explore how this could strengthen AI adoption, innovation and productivity in your organisation, contact us at admin@gii.institute.