That's the advice from a senior executive at one of the world's leading technology infrastructure organizations, who says that IT implementations are no longer once-and-done operations. "There's a lot of trial and error in new technology," said Andrew Allan, senior vice president of financial operations for the CIO's office at Siemens. "What do you want it to do? How do you want to embrace it?" Yet, at the same time, Allan said he does not see AI replacing technology professionals' skills anytime soon at his company.

ZDNET spoke with Allan at the recent Salesforce AgentForce event in New York, where he discussed steering the organization with more than 250,000 employees globally on a new course in an increasingly AI-saturated world.

Combined technology and business skills are in high demand at Siemens, a sprawling conglomerate that produces and sells digital and automation solutions to a range of heavy industries. The company seeks business architects and like-minded professionals "who have deep knowledge of the complexities of the business, and the problems we're trying to solve, and be able to translate that back to a technological solution," said Allan.

"When you start looking at what agents can do, you need people who can translate and decipher that," he said. "It also means before you break ground, you need a good idea of what you're doing, you need user stories, ethics, ROI, and the business case."