Karen Abramson (She/Her), CEO of Wolters Kluwer Corporate Performance & ESG.

In today’s AI-fueled economy, it’s not just the smartest or most advanced or most expensive technologies that win—it’s the most adaptable organizations.

Need some convincing? Look no further than business scholars Wesley Cohen and Daniel Levinthal, who, back in the 1990s, coined the concept of “absorptive capacity.” This business theory argues that an organization’s ability to win competitive advantage lies within its ability to not just recognize, but also absorb and apply new knowledge.

Fast forward to 2025, and absorptive capacity is a mission-critical concept that’s essential for all future-focused organizations, especially as agentic AI takes hold. Agentic AI refers to autonomous systems that can plan, decide and act without human prompting. And it’s more than just the next wave of GenAI. It’s what PwC calls "the new frontier."

According to KPMG’s AI 2025 Quarterly Pulse Survey, 65% of companies are already piloting agentic AI. And Gartner predicts that by 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously. These stats demonstrate that agentic AI isn’t a distant trend. It’s already reshaping workflows, redefining roles and reframing what productivity looks like.

But here’s the catch: Technology alone doesn’t drive transformation. The differentiator is whether your organization can absorb it—whether it can quickly integrate new knowledge, adapt workflows and behaviors and translate insight into action.

That’s what absorptive capacity makes possible. It’s the invisible infrastructure behind every successful AI initiative—and the reason some companies turn innovation into a competitive advantage while others lag.

From Tasks To Autonomy: The (R)evolution Toward Agentic AI

AI has evolved quickly—from automating rote tasks like invoice processing to generating content, code and analysis with large language models. Now, agentic AI is taking us even further.

Unlike earlier forms of AI that wait for human prompts, agentic systems initiate and complete multistep workflows. They gather data, analyze it, make decisions and take action. And they do it all autonomously.

In finance, that might look like automatically flagging compliance risks, generating real-time audit reports or adjusting cash flow forecasts in response to market shifts.

This leap isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about orchestration. Organizations that pair agentic AI with the organizational capacity to absorb and act on its insight won’t just operate faster—they’ll operate smarter.

API + Agentic AI: Accelerating Absorptive Capacity In Action

If agentic AI is the brain, APIs are the nervous system—enabling action, coordination and feedback, enterprise-wide. Together, they don’t just automate tasks—they power continuous learning and adaptation. In other words, they help operationalize absorptive capacity.

APIs allow agentic AI to interact directly with core systems, triggering actions in enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, updating customer relationship management (CRM) records and pushing alerts to compliance tools. This seamless connectivity turns insight into action. And that’s the essence of realized absorptive capacity: not just knowing something new, but doing something with it—quickly and at scale.

Here’s how it works: Agentic AI ingests live data, draws conclusions and takes informed next steps. APIs carry those steps into execution, feeding outcomes back into the AI system for continuous improvement. This closed-loop system amplifies an organization’s ability to absorb new information and translate it into performance gains.

For finance teams, this could mean agentic AI automatically initiating vendor payments, adjusting forecasts or triggering alerts around policy changes without human bottlenecks. For internal audit, it could enable continuous control testing with near-zero manual oversight.

Ultimately, the pairing of agentic AI and APIs doesn’t just boost productivity—it strengthens your organization’s absorptive muscle. And that’s the kind of agility that turns disruption into a competitive edge.

Five Behaviors That Fuel Your Team’s Absorptive Capacity

If APIs are like agentic AI’s nervous system, then absorptive behaviors—like curiosity, knowledge sharing, experimentation, strategic thinking and learning—are the metabolism that drives how quickly and effectively organizations can leverage agentic AI as a competitive advantage.

That’s why fostering these five behaviors will empower finance teams to fully realize the benefits of agentic AI.

1. Curiosity At Scale: In future-ready organizations, curiosity isn’t just tolerated—it’s institutionalized. These organizations encourage questions, welcome dissent and reward those who challenge assumptions. This mindset is essential for agentic AI, which often uncovers unexpected patterns, proposes unprompted actions or flats unfamiliar risks. Teams that ask “What is agentic AI telling us, and why?” are the ones most likely to unlock its full value.

2. Fluid Knowledge Sharing: Silos kill innovation. Absorptive organizations create systems and incentives that move ideas, data and insights fluidly across teams, regions and departments. Finance shares with operations. Legal loops in tech. Knowledge isn’t hoarded—it flows. This transparency accelerates how fast insights become action, which is crucial when agentic AI relies on connected, real-time inputs to deliver value.

3. Purposeful Experimentation: High-capacity organizations know that R&D doesn’t live in a lab. They test ideas inside real workflows, including agentic AI pilots. They treat pilots not as side projects, but as core operations—measuring, iterating and learning with speed.

4. Strategic Linkages: No organization has all the answers. That’s why the most resilient companies plug into a network—universities, startups, think tanks, technology partners. These external inputs keep ideas fresh and shape where and how agentic AI can be applied most effectively.

5. Leadership That Rewards Learning, Not Just Results: Too many leaders reward outcomes and punish missteps. Instead, absorptive leaders reward progress and learning. They build cultures where exploration is valued as much as execution. In fast-evolving fields like AI, this mindset can be the difference between thriving and lagging.

Together, these behaviors transform passive knowledge collection into dynamic action, and that’s what gives companies a competitive edge when disruption hits.

Absorptive capacity is no longer a theoretical concept—it’s a prerequisite for thriving in a tech-driven economy. In an agentic AI world, where speed, adaptability and insight are the new currency, finance leaders who cultivate this capacity won’t just keep up—they’ll lead.

And those who don’t? They’ll be left absorbing the shockwaves.

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