Nearly Half of Global Leaders Say "Expanding Team Capabilities with AI Digital Workforce Is Top Priority"

Microsoft Korea Announces 'Work Trend Index' at Press Briefing
"Employees Must Learn AI Skills and Gain Practical Experience"
"'Frontier Companies' Leveraging AI Are Experiencing Rapid Growth"

Nearly half (45%) of major business leaders worldwide have identified expanding team capabilities through digital labor, such as artificial intelligence (AI), as their top priority for the next 12 to 18 months.

On the 28th, Oh Sungmi, Head of Modern Work Business at Microsoft Korea, presented the key contents of the report at the '2025 Work Trend Index' press briefing.

On April 28, Microsoft Korea held a press briefing at its headquarters in Jongno-gu, Seoul, to announce its annual report, the '2025 Work Trend Index,' and shared insights that business leaders and employees should pay attention to in the age of AI. The findings are based on a survey of 31,000 workers across 31 countries, including Korea, focusing on the changes AI has brought to workplaces and labor markets worldwide.

Oh Sungmi, Head of Modern Work Business at Microsoft Korea, predicted, "Organizations and industries that invest in AI skills will become the leaders of the future." She advised, "Employees must be given opportunities to learn AI technologies and gain hands-on experience," and added, "Companies should actively provide education and tools for this purpose."

She also noted that AI agents are not only taking on simple, repetitive tasks but are emerging as assistants and partners to employees. In particular, she forecast that as economic uncertainty rises and job security becomes less stable, the ability to utilize AI will become even more important.

This year's report introduced the concept of 'frontier companies' for the first time. Frontier companies are defined as those that redesign their management strategies based on AI, form teams where humans and AI agents work together, and achieve rapid growth. In such companies, even new hires can become AI managers from their first day on the job, and are expected to take on more complex and strategic tasks early in their careers.

Among the 31,000 respondents, 71% of the 844 employees working at frontier companies said, "Our company is growing rapidly," which is about twice the global average of 37%.

Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft AI, stated, "AI is transforming not only organizational management strategies but also our very concept of knowledge work," and added, "2025 marks the birth of frontier companies, and within the next few years, the boundaries of employee roles in most industries and organizations will be redefined through AI."

In addition, Microsoft predicted that as the use of AI agents becomes mainstream, the era of the 'agent boss' will arrive. The term 'agent boss' refers to a future where every worker creates and manages AI agents, and adopts a CEO-like mindset similar to that of AI agent-based startups.

Microsoft emphasized that now is a critical moment for companies to take decisive action in order to respond flexibly to the era of AI. To this end, the company recommended: hiring AI agents as digital employees with clearly defined roles; establishing collaboration structures by distinguishing between areas requiring human intervention and tasks that can be automated; and regarding AI adoption as an organization-wide innovation initiative that should be broadly implemented.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.