Microsoft Work Trend Index 2025: Firms with hybrid human-AI agent teams on the rise | Technology News
“Intelligence is becoming abundant, affordable and available on demand,” Microsoft said on Wednesday, April 23, in its newly released fifth annual Work Trend Index Report. The latest edition of the report contains insights related to labour and hiring trends based on a survey of 31,000 people from 31 countries as well as trillions of anonymous and aggregated signals from emails, meetings, and chats within Microsoft 365.
The report signals the emergence of a new type of organisation called the ‘frontier firm’. This new category of organisations are different from conventional firms as they come with access to intelligence on demand and comprise hybrid human-AI agent teams. The Microsoft report recommended what leaders and employees should do to embrace this shift in the work landscape.
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With the rapid rise of AI agents that can reason, plan and act as digital labour, companies can scale capacity as needed, the report read.
Why would leaders need a blueprint?
The report begins acknowledging that we are entering a new reality, one in which AI can reason and solve problems in remarkable ways.
As AI agents are gaining increasing levels of capability, the report states that organisations must navigate the challenge of preparing for an AI-enhanced future. “Human ambition, creativity, and ingenuity will continue to create new economic value and opportunity as we redefine work and workflows.”
As per the report, the new frontier firms are structured around on-demand intelligence and powered ‘hybrid’ teams of humans and AI agents, scaling rapidly, operating with agility, and generating value faster. The report predicted that in the next 2-5 years, every organisation will be on its way to becoming one. While 81 per cent of leaders said this is a pivotal year to rethink key aspects of strategy and operations, 81 per cent of them also said that they expect AI agents to be moderately or extensively integrated into their company’s AI strategy in the next 12-18 months. Story continues below this ad
On the other hand, AI adoption is accelerating, with 24 per cent of leaders saying that their companies have already deployed AI organisation-wide, while 12 per cent remain in pilot mode.
Human-AI agent teams will upend the org chart
The report stated that now with expertise being available on demand, the traditional organisational chart may be replaced with a work chart that is a dynamic, outcome-driven model where teams form around goals, not functions, powered agents that expand employees scope, allowing more impactful ways of working.
As many as 46 per cent of leaders said that their companies are using AI agents to fully automate workflows or processes. According to the report, the number one reason employees turned to AI over a colleague is its 24/7 availability. However, functions, especially those that require judgement, empathy, or creative thinking, rely more heavily on humans. The report said that in order to maximise the impact of these human-agent teams, companies will need a new metric – the human-agent ratio.
Employees as AI agent boss
With AI agents increasingly joining the workforce, the report predicted that there will be a rise in AI agent bosses – a professional who builds, delegates to, and manages agents to amplify their impact. Story continues below this ad
According to the report, every worker, from the boardroom to the front line, would need to think like the CEO of an AI agent-powered startup. Already, 28 per cent of managers are considering hiring AI workforce managers to lead hybrid teams of people and agents, while 32 per cent plan to hire AI agent specials within the next 12 to 18 months.
Leaders also expect that their teams will be redefining business processes with AI, building multi-agent systems to automate complex tasks, training agents, and managing them within the next five years.
