Microsoft sees AI agents shaking up org charts, eliminating traditional functions

At a press conference held at Microsoft Korea’s Gwanghwamun office, Oh Seong-mi, head of the business division, highlighted the top findings of Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index, including the company’s prediction that corporate organizational charts will rapidly change in the coming years, centering on AI agents.

According to Microsoft’s survey, AI has gone beyond a simple work assistant to performing work flexibly as a team member in collaboration with human staff. The report also found that some companies are already restructuring their organizations to foster greater teamwork between people and AI.

The 2025 Work Trend Index report is based on a survey of 31,000 employees in 31 countries. According to Microsoft, this is the year when “frontier companies” ahead of the AI curve have begun to emerge in earnest. The company defines frontier companies as those where AI goes takes on a significant role in leading the entire business workflows as part of the team. General Manager Oh Seong-mi said, “844 of the total respondents fell into this category.”

Employees at frontier companies are particularly positive on AI’s potential to grow their companies rapidly. “Frontier company employees expect to be able to work more efficiently with AI in the future, which can be interpreted as meaning that they are looking forward to the future positively,” Oh Seong-mi explained.

MS predicted that most organizations will shift toward becoming frontier companies in the next two to five years, redefining employee roles. Major examples include Bayer, Dow Chemical, and Wells Fargo. Bayer is currently introducing AI agents into product development, saving 6 hours per week, and Dow Chemical is introducing AI to delivery operations, with an expected cost savings of millions of dollars. Wells Fargo has used AI agents for customer service at more than 4,000 branches, reducing information search time from 10 minutes to 30 seconds.

According to the report, companies are also significantly increasing their use of AI agents. 46% of leaders say their companies are fully automating work processes using agents, and they expected rapid expansion in customer service, marketing, and product development in the next 12 to 18 months.

Enter the ‘agent boss’ era

As the introduction of AI agents spreads, Microsoft predicts that companies will change their organizational structures accordingly. According to the report, 28% of managers already plan to hire a person in charge of a hybrid team consisting of people and AI, and 32% say they are willing to hire an AI agent expert within 12 to 18 months.

As a result, Microsoft sees a new form of leadership called ‘agent boss’ arising. In this future, all employees will have the same mindset as the CEO of an agent-based startup, creating their own agents and delegating and managing tasks.

Microsoft also suggests that organizations previously organized around functions such as finance, marketing, and engineering are likely to be reorganized around goals and projects to be achieved. Accordingly, the possibility of new indicators such as “human-agent ratio,” in which work is optimized by adjusting the appropriate ratio of agents and people, has also been raised.

Other recent surveys have suggested that 92% of IT jobs will be transformed by AI and that 74% of IT pros see AI making their skills obsolete.

According to LinkedIn data, the hiring rate of AI startups is twice that of big tech companies, and 78% of leaders are reorganizing their organizations around AI capabilities, considering hiring AI-specific experts. AI-specific positions that companies are hiring for include AI trainers, agent developers, and data analysis experts.

As for core AI-related capabilities, “AI literacy,” which is understanding AI and deciding on delegation of work, is becoming increasingly important, and Microsoft also predicted that human strengths that cannot be replaced by machines, such as conflict resolution, adaptability, and innovative thinking, will be in greater demand.

“Now, we may need a dedicated department to manage AI agents, like the human resources team. There is an increasing demand for AI resource management teams led by business departments rather than IT departments,” said Oh Seong-mi. “There is a growing awareness among companies that AI should not simply increase productivity, but that the very framework of the organization must change.”