About 40% of large organisations used AI agents in some capacity between May 2025 and June 2026, up from 27% the year before, according to McKinsey's State of AI Global Survey. Companies are increasingly deploying semi-autonomous software to handle tasks ranging from sales and marketing to customer support and administrative work, with the technology creating both efficiency gains and workplace tensions.
At Anything, an AI startup in San Francisco, there are 15 human employees and roughly 150 agents. The company's founder, Dhruv Amin, believes this ratio will soon become the norm across industries. Amin said he expects that "in a year, every company will have more AI co-workers than human co-workers." In the San Francisco tech scene, agents have become a status symbol, with startup employees bragging about how effectively their agents handle common office tasks such as answering emails and sales pitches.
Boston Consulting Group research found that companies expect to scale back their workforce by 10% to 15% over the next few years as they delegate more work to AI. Lindy, which makes customizable agents for sales, customer support and admin work, laid off one-third of its staff after reducing from almost 50 employees to about 20, filling many open roles with AI agents instead. However, MIT research shows that in the present moment, companies are not seeing major productivity gains from AI.
The shift is creating significant workplace tensions. Agents are alienating customers and colleagues who seek human interaction, eliminating roles and forcing employees to become managers of bots that often make mistakes. Haneen Azhar, Lindy's senior growth marketing manager, said she worries about how the shift will affect the next generation of workers, noting that "if I was trying to get my foot in the door right now, I'd be worse off than I was a year ago." Lindy's agents now handle product announcements, social media posts and marketing videos, work that used to be handled by about 100 people in its creator program.
Workers who rely on agents say the technology is changing the skills needed in the workplace rather than replacing humans entirely. Rafael López Muñoz, chief of staff at Wordware, a San Francisco-based startup that makes AI tools, said that after letting AI agents run recruiting, he spent most of his time undoing the agents' mistakes, such as mixing up candidates with similar names or hallucinating parts of a résumé. Tarek Abillama, founder of River, which makes an AI agent for sales calls, said workers have "all become managers" and must constantly check AI's work and provide feedback.
For UK workers and businesses, the trend towards AI agents means potential job losses in administrative and routine roles over the next few years, while demand may grow for people who can manage and oversee AI systems effectively.