Amid widespread concerns about job displacement, over 59 per cent of Indian business leaders are already deploying AI agents to automate workflows across entire teams.
Around 93 per cent of leaders further expect to deploy AI agents to extend workforce capabilities in the next 12-18 months, as per country-specific findings reported by Microsoft India in its annual Work Trend Index (WTI) 2025 report on Wednesday, August 20.
The WTI is Microsoft’s analysis of emerging work patterns based on survey data from 31,000 workers across 31 countries as well as LinkedIn labour trends and anonymised productivity signals from Microsoft 365. The 2025 WTI findings highlight India’s rapid embrace of AI with business leaders across sectors prioritising productivity gains, multi-agent systems, and large-scale upskilling amid technological advances and competitive market pressures.
“We are all spending too much time consumed by the drudgery of work. But imagine a future where this new generation of AI unlocks us and removes the drudgery from our work, from our daily tasks, and frees us to rediscover the joy of creation. For that, we don’t just need a better way of doing things. We need a completely new way of working,” Puneet Chandok, President, Microsoft India & South Asia, said.
“Most businesses today are built on expertise and intelligence. If intelligence and expertise is on-tap for everybody, that would rewire not just the economics of your business but also management practices. You would need a new organisational blueprint for this world,” he added.
WTI 2025 report infographic. (Image: Microsoft)
The new organisational model emphasised by Microsoft in its 2025 WTI report is ‘Frontier Firms’. These are firms comprising hybrid human-AI agent teams, agile operations, rapid value generation, and deep AI integration in workflows and decisions. According to the report, employees at Frontier Firms in India reported a 71 per cent higher thriving rate compared to 37 per cent globally, with more capacity for meaningful work and greater optimism.
AI hiring and skilling
Rather than eliminate jobs, the WTI report suggests that AI is more likely to reshape existing roles by changing the skills they require as well as create entirely new opportunities.
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Over 92 per cent of Indian leaders said they are considering adding AI-specific roles to their company. These new roles might include AI workflow designers, software operators, and ‘agent bosses’ who will be tasked with managing teams of AI agents to enhance productivity, as per the report.
WTI 2025 report infographic. (Image: Microsoft)
In addition to human-AI assistant and human-AI agent teams, Microsoft anticipates the rise of fully human-led, agent-operated businesses. Around 57 per cent of Indian business leaders surveyed said they expect their teams to build multi-agent systems to automate complex tasks.
This shift is likely to be accomplished by AI training as 51 per cent of leaders said upskilling will be their top priority over the next 12–18 months. On the other hand, 63 per cent of managers expect AI training to become a core team responsibility within five years.
It also appears that Indian executives are more ready to navigate the current digital landscape as 80 per cent of leaders are already familiar with AI agents compared to 66 per cent of employees.