Key Statistics
Overall Adoption and Transformation
82%
Leaders say this is a pivotal year to rethink core strategies
81%
Leaders expect agents to be integrated into AI strategy
24%
Leaders say their companies have deployed AI organization-wide
12%
Companies remain in pilot mode for AI
82%
Leaders confident they'll use digital labor to expand capacity
2-5
Years until every organization will be on journey to Frontier Firm
The gap between business demands and human capacity
The Capacity Gap
53%
Leaders say productivity must increase
80%
Global workforce lacking time/energy for work
2 min
Time between interruptions during core work hours
275
Interruptions per day from meetings, emails, or chats
60%
Meetings are ad hoc versus scheduled
122%
PowerPoint edits spike in final 10 minutes before meetings
15%
Increase in chats outside 9-to-5 workday (YOY)
58
Messages arriving before or after work hours
16%
Increase in meetings after 8 p.m. (YOY)
48%
Employees say work feels chaotic and fragmented
52%
Leaders say work feels chaotic and fragmented
Frontier Firms show significant advantages across multiple metrics compared to global averages
Frontier Firms Performance
71%
Frontier Firm workers say their company is thriving
37%
Global average of workers saying their company is thriving
55%
Frontier Firm workers able to take on more work
20%
Global average of workers able to take on more work
90%
Frontier Firm workers report opportunities for meaningful work
73%
Global average reporting opportunities for meaningful work
93%
Frontier Firm workers optimistic about future opportunities
77%
Global average optimistic about future opportunities
21%
Frontier Firm workers fear AI will take their jobs
38%
Global average fear AI will take their jobs
Regional adoption rates of organizations using agents to fully automate workstreams
Human-Agent Teams
46%
Leaders say their organization is using agents to automate workstreams
53%
Asia-Pacific adoption rate
43%
Europe adoption rate
40%
Latin America adoption rate
34%
North America adoption rate
The gap between leaders and employees on the agent boss mindset across seven indicators
Workforce Evolution
33%
Leaders considering headcount reductions
78%
Leaders considering hiring for new AI roles
95%
Frontier Firms considering hiring for AI-specific roles
28%
Managers considering hiring AI workforce managers
32%
Plan to hire AI agent specialists within 12-18 months
20.6%
Top AI startups headcount growth (YOY)
10.6%
Big Tech headcount growth (YOY)
83%
Leaders say AI will enable employees to take on more complex work earlier
Future Expectations
Leaders expect their teams will be engaged in AI-related activities within five years:
38%
Redesigning business processes with AI
42%
Building multi-agent systems
41%
Training agents
36%
Managing agents