At the San Francisco-based startup Anything, founder Dhruv Amin spends his day delegating tasks to a suite of software assistants. He asks Gwen to arrange meetings, troubleshoots code with Cody, and asks Juno to onboard customers. The firm employs fifteen people but runs roughly one hundred fifty agents, a proportion Amin believes will soon become typical. He told The Guardian, "I think in a year, every company will have more AI co-workers than human co-workers."
Adoption of such agents is spreading beyond early-stage firms. McKinsey’s State of AI Global Survey recorded that forty percent of large organisations employed AI agents between May 2025 and June 2026, up from twenty-seven percent the previous year. A Boston Consulting Group analysis predicts workforce reductions of ten to fifteen percent as companies shift tasks to automation, while MIT research notes that most firms have yet to see major productivity lifts from the technology.
A growing market of specialist providers fuels the trend. Companies such as Viktor, Lindy, OpenAI’s Dots, Anthropic’s Claude Cowork and Microsoft’s Scout all offer customizable agents that can plug into thousands of tools. Within the San Francisco tech scene, possessing a large fleet of agents has become a badge of efficiency, a point echoed by Rafael López Muñoz, chief of staff at Wordware, who called the practice “the status symbol.”
Lindy illustrates how agents can replace human staff. After cutting its workforce by a third, the firm now runs with about twenty employees, filling many former roles with AI assistants. Azhar, a senior manager, has shifted responsibilities ranging from calendar management to creating marketing videos to agents, noting that tasks once handled by roughly one hundred people are now automated. She worries that the shift narrows entry-level opportunities, saying a newcomer would face a tougher job market than a year ago.
In the creative sector, Los Angeles producer Jay Blumenfield turned to agents after dismissing an assistant director. He uploaded the script and let an AI generate the shooting schedule, call sheet and daily script, then distribute them to cast and crew. The process completed in hours, allowing Blumenfield and his partner to run the company without any human assistants. Although he describes the practice as “a little taboo,” he says the economics of micro-drama production left him little alternative.
The rise of agents is reshaping required skill sets. Employees now spend much of their time supervising AI output, correcting errors such as mixed-up candidate names or fabricated résumé details, as López Muñoz experienced. River founder Tarek Abillama observes that staff must constantly monitor and provide feedback to agents, noting, "We all became managers." Meanwhile, Brooke Hopkins of Coval has prohibited agents from interacting with customers, arguing that such use appears lazy and erodes trust. Contractor Duncan McClure reported receiving recruitment emails from AI agents, concluding that the approach signals a lack of genuine effort.