Microsoft study: companies rely on AI agents as digital employees
According to Microsoft, one in three German companies is planning to cut jobs. Instead, over three quarters of companies want to hire digital workers.
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More than three quarters of managers in Germany are planning to deploy digital workers in the form of AI agents within the next 12 to 18 months. This is according to the Work Trend Index 2025 published by Microsoft. Around 38 percent of German managers assume that their teams will be managing AI agents within the next five years. Microsoft refers to such employees as "agent bosses". They create, delegate and manage AI agents in order to increase the productivity of the digital workforce.
AI experts are in demand despite the economic situation
Microsoft assigns the role of agent boss to a new type of company, which it calls pioneer companies. They are characterized by the availability of artificial intelligence and the collaboration between employees and AI agents. Around 70 percent of employees rate their economic situation in Europe as positive, compared to only 35 percent of other European companies. So far, however, only 46% of German employees say they are familiar with AI agents. The figure for managers is 76 percent. The technology is currently being used in around half of German companies.
Despite the current economic situation, the demand for AI knowledge in German companies is high. Although more than a third of the managers surveyed in Germany stated that they are currently considering cutting jobs, 79% are considering hiring new AI experts. Around 83 percent of managers believe that employees will be able to implement strategic activities earlier in their careers through the use of AI. Meanwhile, two-thirds of employees believe that AI can advance their careers.
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M365 Copilot gets reasoning models from OpenAI
For the study, Microsoft drew on a survey, telemetry data from Microsoft 365 and labor market trends recorded by LinkedIn. Alongside the publication of the Work Trend Index, the US software company announced numerous innovations for Microsoft 365 Copilot. As part of the Frontier program, OpenAI's reasoning models are available with Researcher and Analyst. Users can also use third-party AI agents, such as Jira or Miro, via the Agent Store.
Furthermore, Microsoft 365 Copilot now includes an AI-supported search that generates contextual answers based on company data. In addition to documents within the Microsoft cloud, it is also possible to connect to external services such as Google Drive, Slack or Confluence. A notebook can also be created for chats, files and meeting notes, which Copilot uses to create a summary as text or audio in real time. Administrators can control access to certain AI agents within their organization.
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