At some startups, AI agents outnumber staff
What is it like to work when your co-workers are AI agents?
Friday, 30 October 2026
Photo by Dillon Shook on Unsplash
Warm-up
- Where do you already use AI in your work or studies?
- When do you prefer a human, not a bot? Why?
- What tasks at your job could software do better?
Vocabulary
- autonomous
- able to act and make decisions without direct human control
- delegate
- to give a task or responsibility to someone or something else
- ratio
- a comparison of two numbers showing how much there is of each
- status symbol
- something that shows success or power to other people
- integrate
- to connect and work together with other tools or systems
- productivity
- the amount of useful work produced in a set time
- workforce
- all the people employed by a company or in an industry
- alienate
- to make someone feel distant, unwelcome, or not listened to
Reading
Listen to this story
British EnglishAt Anything, an AI startup, Dhruv Amin works with 15 people and roughly 150 autonomous AI agents. There is an agent office manager for kitchen supplies. It is the ratio of agents to humans that some founders now brag about.
What is driving the shift, many say, is cost. Startups treat agents as a status symbol that proves they can do more with less. Tools from big tech—OpenAI’s Dots, Anthropic’s Claude Cowork and Microsoft’s Scout—integrate with thousands of services to run tasks after staff go home. New vendors are pushing the same idea, such as Viktor’s “AI chief of staff” and Lindy’s custom agents for sales and support.
Yet tensions are growing. Customers and colleagues who want human contact feel alienated, roles are cut, and employees must supervise bots that make mistakes. McKinsey reports 40% of large organisations used agents between May 2025 and June 2026, up from 27% a year earlier. Boston Consulting Group says firms expect to delegate enough work to cut their workforce by 10–15% in coming years, while MIT research finds no major productivity gains so far.
Comprehension
- Which startup has about 150 agents and 15 people?
- Why do some startups see agents as a status symbol?
- According to McKinsey, what share of large organisations used agents?
- What do BCG and MIT each say about the effects of agents?
- Name two big-tech tools that integrate with many services.
Grammar focus
Adding emphasis - cleft sentences
Use cleft sentences to focus one part. It-cleft: It + be + X + that/who + clause. Pseudo-cleft: What + clause + be + focus. After It, use that/who; after What, use is/are with the complement. (Examples constructed.)
- It was the cost that worried startups.
- What many founders want is fewer humans per agent.
Grammar exercise
Circle the correct option in each sentence.
- It was agents (that ran / ran) tasks after hours.
- It was cost (what / that) drove the shift.
- What founders want (is / are) a lower ratio.
- It was kitchen supplies (what / that) the manager handled.
- What customers need now (is / are) a human reply.
Discussion
- Should companies delegate more tasks to AI agents? Why or why not?
- Where is human interaction essential in your job or studies?
- How can managers prevent colleagues feeling alienated by agents?
- Is a high agent-to-human ratio a healthy status symbol?
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