---
id: "concept-ai-orchestration"
type: "concept"
source_timestamps: ["§ Defining This Pivotal Role"]
tags: ["operations", "management", "workflows"]
related: ["concept-agent-manager", "framework-ai-orchestration-responsibilities", "concept-test-deploy-learn-cycles"]
definition: "The operational practice of managing, monitoring, and refining AI agents and their interactions with workflows, humans, and other agents to achieve business outcomes."
sources: ["agentic"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-agentic"
originDay: 6
articleStem: "hbr-sig-58-agent-managers"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/02/to-thrive-in-the-ai-era-companies-need-agent-managers"
sourceTitle: "To Thrive in the AI Era, Companies Need Agent Managers"
---
# AI Orchestration

## AI Orchestration

A new kind of operational leadership combining **business insight, analytical rigor, and hands-on interaction with AI systems**. It manages the end-to-end lifecycle of AI agent performance in a *live* environment:
- Monitoring quality and speed,
- Refining prompts,
- Managing human handoffs,
- Conducting root-cause analysis on failed cases,
- Quantifying ROI.

It extends to **multi-agent orchestration** — visualizing and optimizing how different AI agents interact across workflows, departments, and with each other.

### Connected notes
- The core discipline of the [[concept-agent-manager]].
- Enumerated as day-to-day duties in [[framework-ai-orchestration-responsibilities]].
- Executed through iterative [[concept-test-deploy-learn-cycles]].

### Enrichment note
Strongly supported. Rasa explicitly treats multi-agent systems as needing 'orchestration, communication standards, and conflict resolution when agents disagree,' and frames orchestration as a continuous discipline (Pilot → Integrate → Scale → Optimize). PyramidCI likens the function to a 'horizontal control plane' (analogous to CISO or Head of DevOps). The emerging industry term is **'Agent Operations,'** paralleling MLOps but for autonomous, interactive agents.


## Related across articles
- [[concept-orchestration-layer]]
- [[concept-structural-ai-diversity]]
- [[framework-platform-layers]]