What is an agentic workforce? Answers for buyers

An agentic workforce is one in which AI agents carry out defined tasks alongside people, while people set goals and oversee the work. An AI agent is software that uses AI to complete multi-step tasks with limited supervision. Via (transformation planning) is built to plan the move to an agentic workforce: see Via agentic workforce transformation. In Via, each task has a current and a future performer, either a human role or an AI-agent role.

Not quite: agentic AI is a capability, and an AI agent is software that uses it to do a specific job. Agentic AI describes AI that can plan and carry out multi-step work toward a goal with limited supervision. An AI agent applies that capability to one defined task, with the tools and limits it needs. In Via, an AI agent is planned as a role with an hourly cost that you can assign to tasks.

Agentic workforce management usually means software that operates AI agents day to day: it assigns their work, monitors them and governs them in production. Optimus Hive is a different kind of product. Optimus Hive shows how work is done today, then plans, prices and tracks the move of that work to AI agents. Via does not build, deploy or operate agents.

Yes: you can't hand work to AI agents until you know how it's done today, what it costs and what should change. Opus (task mining) and Favus (process mining) show how the work really runs, at the desktop and across your business systems. Your team can then plan the move to AI agents with Via, which turns your decisions into a costed plan and tracks the savings.

Opus records which applications people use on Windows PCs and for how long, plus always-on agent health and optional data types that your administrators control. Department switches control window titles, websites, search terms, keyboard and mouse counts, idle reasons, typed text, clipboard contents, and Outlook email and calendar items. Excel cell changes follow your privacy policy and general collection settings, with no separate switch. Screenshots and task screen recordings stay blocked until an administrator allows them; AI-tool usage and approximate location need an administrator setting.

Your company's administrators control what Opus collects, through a device privacy policy and department settings. Opus collects no work activity until an administrator publishes the policy, and collection pauses if the policy is not refreshed. Capture can be limited to working hours, and departments can let employees pause it.

Yes: the device privacy policy lists excluded applications and websites, and nothing recorded in them is uploaded. Their window and website activity is dropped on the PC before it is stored. The same policy can hold up to 100 text-redaction patterns, and matching text is masked before anything leaves the PC.

Yes: in their own portal, employees see which data categories are collected about them, the collection policy that applies, and who has accessed their data. They can also request corrections, which administrators work through in a review queue.

Yes, unless your company switches that off: a company-wide setting can block identifiable reports. Protected cohort reports show groups rather than named people; small groups are hidden and people appear under pseudonyms. Revealing a person in a cohort report takes a tenant administrator and a recorded reason, and employees can see who accessed their data.

The Security add-on is a separately licensed part of Opus for security rules and device controls:

• With the Security add-on, Opus lists the programs installed on each PC, with versions and publishers.
• With the Security add-on, rules can watch files, printing, instant messages, network destinations, database activity and text read from the screen. Each source is read only when a rule needs it.
• A rule can record the screen around a violation, optionally with microphone audio.
• The Security add-on can turn off USB storage, log print jobs, and block listed applications and websites.
• The Security add-on scores user risk against learned baselines.

Yes: the Opus desktop agent keeps recording offline, holding records in an encrypted local store until it can upload them over HTTPS. Records are deleted from the PC only after the platform confirms receipt. Each privacy-policy copy is valid for six hours, so a PC offline for longer pauses collection until it can refresh the policy.

No: Opus records work at the desktop through its Windows agent, so it needs no connection to your business systems. IT installs the agent with an MSI installer, enrolls each PC once with a one-time token and publishes the device privacy policy. Agent updates are signed and can go to pilot groups first, with rollback. The Opus web app supports OpenID Connect single sign-on and SCIM user provisioning.