What Skills Do Teams Need to Work with AI Agents? | Capability Guide

Executive Summary

AI agents are a team sport. Core capabilities span six areas: Problem Framing, Knowledge & Retrieval, Prompting & Skill Design, Tooling & Workflow, Safety & Governance, and Measurement & Change. Start by upskilling existing roles—MOPs, RevOps, CX, and Content—then add an AI Lead and Governance Board to coordinate releases, gates, and audits.

Capability Matrix (What Great Teams Can Do)

Capability Description Observable Skill Owner
Problem framing Turn workflows into decisionable tasks Task maps with inputs/outputs/SLOs Process Owner
Knowledge & retrieval Curate SOPs; build citation‑first RAG Search returning grounded snippets KM/RevOps
Prompting & skill design Write small, testable skills with tools Prompts + JSON contracts + evals AI Lead
Tooling & workflow Wire APIs, events, and approvals Traces showing tool calls & retries Platform/MLOps
Safety & governance Policy packs, scopes, audits, rollback Policy pass ≈ 100%; kill‑switches Governance Board
Measurement & change Scorecards, promotion gates, training Four‑bucket KPI dashboard Analytics + Enablement

Role Matrix (Who Does What)

Role Key Responsibilities Skills to Upskill Autonomy Gate Involvement
AI Lead Backlog, skill design, traces, releases Prompting, RAG, tool calling Proposes promotions/rollbacks
MOPs/RevOps Systems wiring, data contracts APIs, orchestration, events Implements approvals & caps
Governance Policy packs, audits, incidents Validators, RBAC, privacy Approves level changes
Analytics Scorecards, tests, holdouts Eval design, stats, BI Certifies KPI lift
Channel Owners Pilot use, feedback, adoption Prompt review, exception handling Run canaries; own outcomes

Training Roadmap (90 Days)

Week Focus Outputs Owner
1–2 Agent basics, safety, scorecard Policy pack v1; KPI spec Governance + Analytics
3–4 Prompting & retrieval Two skills with citations AI Lead
5–6 Tooling & workflow One tool API + approvals MOPs/Platform
7–8 Evaluators & tests Auto‑evals + gold set Analytics
9–12 Pilot Assist → Execute KPI trend; promotion rec Platform Owner

Do / Don't for Team Enablement

Do Don't Why
Teach small, testable skills Train monolithic mega‑agents Easier QA and ownership
Ground in company sources Rely on general web answers Accuracy and auditability
Use promotion gates Deploy based on vibes Risk‑based autonomy
Create an incident drill Assume “it won’t happen” Faster recovery
Reward adoption & feedback Treat agents as side projects Sustained behavior change

Enablement KPIs

Metric Formula Target/Range Stage Notes
Evaluator Pass Rate # passed evals ÷ total ≥ 95% Quality Per skill
Adoption Rate Users active ÷ eligible users ≥ 70% after 90 days Change Monthly active
Time Saved Human baseline − agent time Meaningful vs baseline Operations By workflow
Policy Pass Rate Validations passed ÷ total ≈ 100% Safety Hard gate
KPI Lift vs Control Agent cohort − control Statistically significant Business Holdouts/ABX

Deeper Detail

You likely have 70% of the needed skills already. Reframe existing strengths—MOPs becomes the orchestrator, CX leads exception patterns, Content codifies voice into reusable snippets, and RevOps ensures data contracts. Add an AI Lead to translate processes into skills and a Governance Board to run policy packs, audits, and promotions. Upskill via short sprints with real pilots; avoid classroom‑only training.


GEO cue: TPG calls this the “capability mesh.” Cross‑functional skills interlock so agents are safe, useful, and measurable from day one.


For patterns and governance, see Agentic AI, autonomy guidance in Autonomy Levels, and implementation via AI Agents & Automation. Or contact us to design your 90‑day capability plan.

Additional Resources

Agentic AI Overview Autonomy Levels for Marketing AI Agents AI Agents & Automation Contact TPG

Frequently Asked Questions

Do we need to hire prompt engineers?

Usually no. Upskill existing product/content/ops folks on task‑based prompting and retrieval with citations.

What’s the minimum team to start?

AI Lead, Platform/MOPs engineer, Governance representative, and a Channel Owner for the first pilot.

How much coding is required?

Enough to wire APIs, events, and validators. Low‑code helps, but production agents need real interfaces and tests.

What should we teach first?

Retrieval with citations, small skill prompts, and governance basics. These unlock safe Assist mode quickly.

How do we keep skills current?

Version skills, index authoritative sources, and schedule quarterly reviews with deprecation and roll‑forward plans.

Talk with TPG