The Problem: Feature-First Agent Design
Most agent projects start with the technology. A team picks a framework, chooses a model, wires up tools, and builds capabilities — then goes looking for users who might want them. This is the same pattern that has produced a 95% failure rate for new products across industries for decades. [1]
The pattern repeats in agentic AI. McKinsey's 2025 report on agentic AI found that nearly eight in ten companies have deployed generative AI in some form, but roughly the same percentage report no material impact on earnings. About 90% of transformative use cases remain stuck in pilot mode. [2]
The problem is not the technology. It is the starting point. Teams build agents around what models can do rather than around what users need done.
What Jobs To Be Done Actually Means
Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a framework developed by Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School. The core idea: people don't buy products — they hire them to get a job done. [3]
The canonical example is Christensen's milkshake study for McDonald's. The company wanted to sell more milkshakes. They surveyed customers, improved the recipe, and changed nothing about sales. Christensen's team took a different approach — they stood in the parking lot at 7am and watched. Half the milkshakes sold before 8am, almost always to solo drivers on their way to work. [4]
Those customers weren't buying a milkshake. They were hiring something to make a boring commute less tedious, keep them occupied for twenty minutes, and not leave crumbs on their suit. The real competitors weren't other milkshakes — they were bananas, bagels, and boredom.
The insight changed the product direction entirely. Make the shake thicker so it lasts longer. Add fruit chunks for variety. Move the dispenser in front of the counter for faster purchase. This is what JTBD does: it shifts the question from "how do we improve this product?" to "what job is the customer hiring this product to do?"
The Three Dimensions of Every Job
JTBD identifies three dimensions to every job people need done:
Functional: What task needs to be completed? This is the practical outcome — deploy infrastructure, review a pull request, generate a report. It's the dimension that engineers default to, and the one that is necessary but rarely sufficient.