From AI Agents to Digital Coworkers: Building the Future of Work

Nearly eight in ten companies say they are using generative AI, yet just as many admit they’ve seen no measurable impact on the bottom line. This is the “GenAI paradox,” and it captures the reality facing business and IT leaders today: AI is everywhere, but value is elusive. The use case for implementing agentic AI as digital coworkers offers a path to measurable outcomes. These digital coworkers can help organizations accelerate productivity, scale operations, and finally unlock the ROI they’ve been promised.

However, realizing that value demands a shift in how we think about work. These agents cannot succeed if treated as just another tool layered onto existing processes. It requires deliberate steps to foster effective human–AI collaboration and thoughtful adoption. It’s up to business leaders to create an environment where employees can learn, experiment, and grow alongside these new systems.

The path forward is clear. Organizations must build conditions where human expertise and agentic AI thrive together. This starts with rethinking how we define coworkers, train teams, and govern digital collaboration at scale.

From Tools to Coworkers: The Evolution of Agentic AI

AI has been part of the enterprise for years, long before the rise of ChatGPT. Many organizations that have succeeded with today’s tools did so by laying strong foundations well before generative models appeared. Companies like Adobe, ServiceNow, and Zoom have long leveraged advanced AI systems to streamline operations. At Xerox IT Solutions, we developed an AIOps platform to deliver highly automated Network Operations Center (NOC) services that deliver best-in-class Availability and Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR).  Early adopters demonstrated that sustained investment in data infrastructure and intelligent automation builds the groundwork for scalable, enterprise-wide transformation. But those systems were largely task-specific—they followed rules, executed instructions, and required significant human oversight.

Agentic AI marks a fundamental shift. These systems deploy agents that, in the workplace, are best understood as digital coworkers. They move beyond automation to take responsibility for decisions, workflows, and collaboration with human teams. That can include processing thousands of contracts, resolving IT support tickets, managing complex finance workflows, or coordinating across departments at speeds no human workforce can match. It also creates a multi-agent ecosystem where humans collaborate with supervisory, functional, and task-specific AI assistants. This enables employees to focus on strategic problem-solving, reduce operational costs, and scale the business more effectively.

This distinction allows AI agents to move beyond experimentation and into ROI. In fact, recent data from PwC shows that 88% of senior executives plan to increase AI-related budgets over the next 12 months due to agentic AI’s potential.

With all that said, teaching people how to manage and collaborate with these agents will be just as important as deploying them.

Fostering Human and AI Collaboration in the Workplace

One of the most powerful advantages of agentic AI is its ability to bridge the gap between structured and unstructured data, aggregating information across formats to drive smarter decisions. Yet the real power of digital coworkers lies in partnership.

These systems are not designed to replace humans; they are designed to complement them. This requires new approaches to skills, training, and collaboration. Employees must learn to manage digital coworkers by supervising them, integrating them into workflows, and adapting their own roles. Doing so also helps close a growing workplace training gap around AI literacy.  As AI becomes embedded in day-to-day tasks—from customer support to supply chain management—continuous learning will be essential to keep human expertise aligned with digital progress.

According to the Nash Squared/Harvey Nash Digital Leadership report, published earlier this year, the shortage of AI skills is accelerating rapidly. Almost twice as many technology leaders (51%) compared to the previous report (28%) now say they are suffering an AI skills shortage, an 82% jump. Meanwhile, today’s students are already integrating AI education into their coursework, bridging academic learning and enterprise readiness.

Hands-on experience working alongside agents will help employees at all levels build confidence, productivity, and adaptability. It also ensures organizations capture AI’s benefits without leaving their workforce behind. Human oversight remains critical. Without it, organizations risk bias, security vulnerabilities, and other challenges that can erode trust with clients and employees alike.

Governing Digital Coworkers at Scale

Organizations must build a secure, well-governed foundation to deploy agentic AI effectively. Adopting digital coworkers without proper safeguards risks inefficiency and potential reputational or regulatory harm.

Security and compliance are especially vital in hybrid and data-rich environments. Zero-trust architecture—a framework that assumes no implicit trust based on location, device, or account—helps protect sensitive information. By working closely with information security, privacy, and compliance teams, companies can ensure agents operate safely within established guardrails.

At the same time, AI adoption must align with core business strategies. Leaders should identify workflows where agents can deliver the most value and scale responsibly. With thoughtful strategy, robust governance, and intentional integration, organizations can empower digital coworkers to accelerate innovation and drive sustainable growth. Without these measures, sensitive data may be exposed, leaving vulnerabilities that undermine both operational and reputational strength.

Building the Conditions for Digital Coworker Success

For most organizations, the hard part isn’t adoption; it’s execution. This underscores that technology alone cannot deliver transformation. Without reimagining how humans and AI collaborate, companies will stay locked in experimentation cycles that fail to yield results. Closing that gap requires not just new tools, but new ways of thinking about responsibility, communication, and how work gets done.

Agentic AI represents a shift from automation to collaboration. Organizations that create the right conditions for digital coworkers to thrive will unlock measurable gains in efficiency, innovation, and agility. The future of work will not be defined by humans versus AI but by humans with AI—each enhancing the other’s strengths.

To realize that vision, leaders must connect strategy with execution. That means reengineering workflows, reskilling teams, and embedding AI governance into the organization’s DNA. The next advantage will come not from adopting new technologies, but from operationalizing trust and accountability between people and their digital counterparts.

Business leaders who move decisively (i.e., piloting digital coworker programs, measuring impact, and scaling what works), will separate genuine transformation from hype. Those that succeed won’t just boost productivity; they’ll redefine how value is created, how teams operate, and how AI innovation truly scales across the modern enterprise.