Future historians will see that the seeds of a profound transformation were planted in 2025. By 2050, most people will command workforces larger than the biggest multinational corporations of today. But our “employees” won’t be people sitting in cubicles or standing on factory floors. They will be fleets of AI agents—digital workers which can perform tasks like design products, write code, negotiate supply chains, run complex experiments, and devise marketing campaigns while we sleep.

The speed at which agentic AI has spread throughout the workforce accelerated over the past year. A survey of business executives by PwC indicates that 79% of companies are leveraging agentic AI. And though many have understandably criticized companies which have invested in AI without immediate bottom-line benefits—a phenomenon I call the “

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