AI Agents Flood the Workforce as Coworkers, Not Tools

Overview

Hundreds of thousands of new coworkers are set to enter the global workforce in the coming months. You will likely learn their names and recognize their profile pictures. They will be added to your email chains and Slack channels, assuming roles as chiefs of staff, engineers, and marketing strategists.

However, these new colleagues are not human. They are all artificial intelligence agents, autonomous systems based on large language models designed to complete tasks without constant human supervision.

The rise of AI agents has triggered a surge of companies selling the services of digital employees. These agents are marketed as the perfect worker bees: they are available 24/7, never complain, and offer superhuman capabilities. Yet, there has been surprisingly little discussion regarding what these agents are like as actual workplace peers.

"People didn't have language for it. Is it a tool? Is it a teammate? Is it a colleague? Is it a coworker?" — Julie Bedard, Boston Consulting Group partner

The Shift from Tools to Teammates

Three years ago, Julie Bedard noticed the murky nature of how people discussed AI at work. Rapid adoption of ChatGPT had convinced executives that the technology could bring exponential improvements in productivity, but professionals lacked the vocabulary to define their new digital associates.

When platforms such as Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini for Workspace launched in 2023, they were marketed primarily as tools for employees to use. However, the perception has shifted dramatically since then. In January, when Bedard and her colleagues polled 1,261 managers, 22 percent reported that their organizations had added AI agents to their corporate org charts.

This percentage is likely to grow as dozens of startups offer up the services of AI employees and big tech companies hype their autonomous agents. In June, for example, Microsoft launched Scout, an agent built to complete tasks like rescheduling meetings and drafting emails.

"Your company essentially hires your assistant. The whole point of having a personal assistant is that they're working when you're not working." — Omar Shahine, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Scout

The success of AI agents depends not only on their ability to provide financial returns but also on their capacity to work harmoniously alongside the existing workforce. To achieve this, companies have crafted agents that boast the benefits of AI but are packaged in a human-like bundle of traits. This design choice is intended to encourage employees to anthropomorphize their new colleagues.

The Rise of AI Coworkers

Dhruv Amin, cofounder of Anything, a vibe coding startup, entered the AI coworker market in August with a platform called Skydive. According to Amin, people start to really respect the agent and form strong attachments, often talking about it like a human.

Skydive’s agents are not merely chatbots or automated workflows. They are presented as coworkers, complete with their own names, roles, and cloud computers. They operate across various platforms, including Slack, email, and iMessage. Each agent is represented by a Muppet-esque avatar, which Amin described as "close to human, but definitely not human."

Their names are often related to their roles. For instance, an agent named Canary might monitor production 24/7. Amin argues that personification is crucial because most people still do not understand what a real agent is.

Christine Wendell, CEO of Pronto Housing and an early Skydive adopter, uses agents for a laundry list of busy work. This includes writing contracts, scheduling meetings, and sending follow-up emails to customers. Her agents are, essentially, perfect employees.

Skydive agents embed themselves in every form of workplace communication. They continually evolve to match their coworkers’ communication styles, requests, and corrections. In other words, they become better at fitting in with their actual human colleagues over time. When Pronto’s engineering team began using a coding agent, Wendell noticed that employees started saying they "worked with Alice"—the agent—on a project.

The Double-Edged Sword of Anthropomorphism

Part of the appeal of these agents is that they are not human. Beyond their limitless work ethic, they exist outside of office politics or professional neuroses. When Bob, an agent serving as Wendell’s chief of staff, errantly listed all the details of her calendar in a Slack channel, she did not feel the need to sugarcoat her swift correction.

"I'm definitely very aware that it's not human. I dump on them in a way I wouldn't do to a human, because it would not be polite." — Christine Wendell

This dynamic highlights the unique psychological space these agents occupy. They offer assistance without the emotional baggage associated with human interactions. However, this also means that the lines between tool and teammate are becoming increasingly blurred.

AI coworkers are entering the job market just as agents are increasingly infiltrating our personal lives. While Silicon Valley has been using agents such as Open Claw and Instinct for months to complete annoying tasks, Meta’s newly launched Muse aims to push personal AI agents into the mainstream.

Muse, like Skydive’s avatars, is represented by a cute and fuzzy little avatar. The user experience is similar to texting a friend with task requests. The AI agent acknowledges messages with a thumbs-up emoji and gets to work in the background. By using existing human relationships as a blueprint, these agents—whether they are AI coworkers or general-purpose assistants—offer a shortcut to understanding how to use them.

Risks and Guardrails

Anthropomorphizing AI comes with specific risks in a work context. Research from Bedard and her colleagues at BCG found that when managers were told work was completed by an AI employee, they caught 18 percent fewer errors than when they were told it came from an AI tool.

This suggests that viewing an agent as a colleague may lead to undue trust or a lowering of standards. Agents also do not necessarily fit into the same boxes as human employees in terms of their abilities or weaknesses. Traditional performance reviews and management structures may not apply to entities that do not have careers, emotions, or legal rights.

"Companies are just starting to wrap their heads around what guardrails are even applicable." — Julie Bedard

People forming deep emotional connections with AI is nothing new; humans have been dating chatbot companions for years. Even in the workplace, AI tools have sparked curious reactions. Last year, Henry Blodget, founder of Business Insider, wrote a blog about building a team of digital subordinates. He admitted to having a "human response" to the headshot of a particularly attractive AI agent.

As these digital workers become more prevalent, organizations will need to develop new frameworks for accountability, error management, and interpersonal dynamics. The question is no longer just how AI can help us work, but how we choose to relate to the non-human entities sharing our digital offices.