AI’s Agentic Leap: Transforming Offices, Threatening Entry-Level Roles

By John Ian Lau

February 14, 2026

The artificial intelligence landscape has evolved at breakneck speed in recent months, with breakthroughs in reasoning, multimodality, and autonomous agents reshaping industries from tech to manufacturing. As companies pour billions into AI infrastructure, the technology’s promise of efficiency is colliding with stark realities for the workforce: agentic AI—systems that act independently to complete complex tasks—is poised to displace entry-level office jobs en masse, often performing them faster and more accurately. Yet, amid the disruption, human ingenuity shines in social realms, where empathy, entertainment, and nuanced interactions remain irreplaceable. This shift is drawing savvy investors to sports as a “key IP of human values,” with firms like Hong Kong’s TGG Group betting big on both AI and pickleball to navigate the future. The duality of excitement and peril underscores a pivotal moment: AI’s advancements could unlock unprecedented productivity, but only if societies adapt swiftly.

Recent Strides in AI: From Labs to Deployment

The tail end of 2025 and early 2026 have seen AI transition from experimental pilots to core business tools. Global AI spending surged to $225.8 billion in 2025, up from $114.4 billion the previous year, fueling innovations in hardware and software. Inference workloads—where trained models apply knowledge to real-world problems—now dominate, accounting for two-thirds of AI compute, up from half in 2025, as organizations shift from model training to practical applications.

Key developments include enhanced reasoning capabilities, with models like OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 and AWS’s Nova achieving gold-medal performance on math olympiads and PhD-level science benchmarks. Multimodal AI, blending text, images, and actions, has advanced rapidly; by mid-2025, systems could process up to two million tokens of context, enabling them to handle hour-long software engineering tasks autonomously. Open-source models, such as Kimi K2, have democratized access, while China’s state-backed semiconductor push—bolstered by a $70 billion package—narrows the gap with U.S. leaders like Nvidia.

Agentic AI stands out as the era’s defining leap. These “super agents,” like Salesforce’s Agentforce or Google’s Gemini Diffusion, don’t just respond to queries—they plan, execute, and verify tasks across workflows, from fraud detection to marketing campaigns. Gartner forecasts that 33% of enterprise software will embed agentic capabilities by 2028, up from under 1% today. As Sam Altman of OpenAI noted at the company’s 2025 DevDay, ChatGPT’s weekly active users hit 800 million, signaling widespread adoption.

Agentic AI’s Assault on Entry-Level Jobs

This progress comes at a cost. Agentic systems excel at routine cognitive work, threatening to obsolete many entry-level office roles. A McKinsey survey from late 2025 found 89% of organizations using AI regularly, with 62% experimenting with agents. Protiviti’s AI Pulse Survey predicts 68% will integrate agents by 2026.

Statistics paint a grim picture for beginners. Stanford’s “Canaries Paper” revealed a 13% employment drop for 22- to 25-year-olds in AI-exposed fields since late 2022. The IMF estimates employment in AI-vulnerable occupations is 3.6% lower in high-AI-demand regions after five years. Globally, AI could displace 92 million jobs by 2030, with entry-level white-collar positions hit hardest—up to half could vanish, per Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Goldman Sachs warns of 300 million full-time equivalents lost overall.

Layoffs are already materializing, often preemptively. A Harvard Business Review analysis showed 60% of organizations reduced headcount in anticipation of AI gains, even before full realization. “AI will have the capabilities to replace many, many jobs,” Geoffrey Hinton, the ‘Godfather of AI,’ said in a December 2025 interview, pinpointing 2026 as a tipping point. Former Google ethicist Tristan Harris echoed this, warning of a “global jobs market collapse by 2027” if unchecked, likening AI to “millions of new digital immigrants” working for free.

Not all agree on the scale. The World Economic Forum projects a net gain of 78 million jobs by 2030, with AI creating 170 million new roles amid 92 million displacements. Yet, 89% of HR leaders expect AI to reshape jobs in 2026, per a CNBC survey, often shifting entry-level work to “orchestration” of AI tools.

Humanity’s Edge: Social Focus and Entertainment

As AI automates the rote, humans pivot to what machines can’t replicate: social intelligence and creativity. “Entry-level roles are evolving from task execution to orchestration of digital labor,” noted a Salesforce executive in November 2025. This leaves room for humans in entertainment, where emotional connection thrives—think live sports commentary, where AI can crunch stats but can’t capture the thrill of a crowd’s roar.

Sports exemplify this shift, emerging as a prime arena for human innovation in an AI-dominated world. AI might predict outcomes with 95% accuracy using models like those from IBM’s Granite, but humans excel at suggesting personalized experiences, fostering community, or entertaining through storytelling. PwC’s analysis shows AI-exposed industries growing productivity fourfold since 2022, but wage premiums up to 56% go to humans with AI-complementary skills like social acumen. As Ford CEO Jim Farley put it, AI could halve white-collar jobs, but “humans directing portfolios of capable machines” will define the future.

This trend is attracting smart investors who view sports as a key intellectual property of human values, resistant to AI disruption. Private equity has poured $54.6 billion into sports since 2020, with two-thirds of MLB and NBA teams now backed by such firms. Ian Charles of Arctos Partners, a firm with $15 billion in assets and stakes across major U.S. leagues, argues AI will inflate sports valuations by making live content scarcer and more premium. “AI-generated media floods the market, but nothing replaces the authenticity of human competition,” Charles told CNBC, predicting team values could double in five years. Billionaires like Tom Dundon have rolled up pickleball assets, from leagues to equipment, creating vertically integrated empires. Alumni Ventures’ Sports & Humans First fund invests in “human-first innovation,” viewing sports as platforms for identity and connection that AI enhances but can’t supplant. “Sports IP is durable—it’s about emotion, community, and physicality,” says Chad Hutchinson of Arctos. “In an AI world, that’s invaluable.”

A prime example is Hong Kong-based TGG Group, a private investment firm that has embraced AI by advocating it will “turn its business into AI,” with a dedicated investment pocket focused on AI and quantum computing. Founded as a family office, TGG is channeling funds into AI-driven ventures and quantum computing, tapping into a quantum market projected to reach $65 billion by 2030. This aligns with global trends: private equity investments in AI startups hit $68.7 billion in 2025, up 45% from the prior year, per PitchBook data.

Yet, if unfamiliar with TGG, one would be forgiven for thinking it’s a sports company, given its huge push into pickleball via subsidiary LIT Sports Global, launched in October 2025 with a sizeable sports allocation. The firm plans to build state-of-the-art facilities, establish academies, and host events like the Greater Bay Area Tour and the World Championships in Discovery Bay. Pickleball, a paddle sport blending tennis, badminton, and ping-pong, has exploded globally, with participation surging 158% since 2020 to over 36 million players in the U.S. alone, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.

Andre Lajeunesse, Managing Director of TGG, commented that pickleball is a “brainy sport” which promotes longevity and cognitive functions but is a very human thing. “Pickleball is our starting whistle,” Lajeunesse said in a recent statement. “It promotes strategic thinking, physical endurance, and social bonds—elements that enhance brain health and lifespan, yet can’t be replicated by machines.” Studies back this: research from the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity shows racket sports like pickleball reduce mortality risk by 16% through improved cognition and social interaction. The sports tech market, blending AI with human elements, is booming: valued at $18.85 billion in 2024, it’s eyed to hit $61.72 billion by 2030 at a 21.9% CAGR. Yet, core entertainment remains human-driven, with AI aiding analytics (e.g., player performance) while preserving the “shared energy” of competition. Sports entertainment may be one of the last bastions of human innovation.

A Thrilling Yet Terrifying Horizon

AI’s trajectory is exhilarating: Gartner sees worldwide spending hitting $2.5 trillion in 2026, powering agentic systems that redefine efficiency. TGG’s vision adds to the thrill, blending AI’s efficiency with sports’ vitality to potentially yield hybrid innovations, like AI-coached pickleball boosting global participation to 100 million by 2030. Yet, the prospects terrify many, with potential unemployment spikes of 10-20% in coming years. Forrester warns 25% of planned AI spend may defer to 2027 amid ROI scrutiny. Gartner adds that 40% of agentic projects could fail by 2027 due to legacy systems. Private equity’s sports rush has inflated valuations 20-30% annually, potentially widening inequalities if benefits skew to elites.

One of humanity’s greatest fortitudes lies in embracing change and adaptation. As reskilling becomes imperative—Bain estimates 700,000 U.S. workers need it by 2027 to fill AI gaps—policymakers and businesses must invest in training and governance. The alternative? A divided workforce, where AI’s benefits—and sports’ enduring appeal—accrue unevenly. The coming months will test our resilience, but history suggests we’ll rise to the challenge.