A ratio that becomes a bragging point
According to The Guardian, in some San Francisco technology startups, AI agents—software capable of performing tasks without human intervention—are taking on a central role in the organization of work. The article cites the case of Anything, which employs 15 people and about 150 agents: founder Dhruv Amin predicts that such a disproportion will soon become the norm and argues that within a year every company will have more artificial collaborators than humans.
In the same environment, according to several accounts collected by the British daily, boasting about the capabilities of one's agents has become a kind of status symbol, because it shows that the company can do more with fewer resources. Agents are used to answer emails, handle administrative tasks, conduct sales presentations and handle personnel research and development.
Fewer hires and changing roles
The Guardian reports that the company Lindy, after laying off a third of its staff, reduced its workforce to about 20 employees and filled many vacant positions with agents, while continuing to hire for some roles. A manager at the company says she delegated a long list of tasks to agents, from calendar management to testing marketing messages, and admits she worries about the impact on opportunities for younger generations.
Even in sectors far from software, the use of agents is presented as a cost-effective solution: the owner of a micro-drama production company in Los Angeles, after laying off an assistant director, assigned an agent the drafting of the shooting schedule and communications to the crew, obtaining satisfactory results according to his account and being able to work without assistants. The article stresses, however, that in environments such as Hollywood, discussing these tools remains an uncomfortable topic.
Work becomes supervision, with errors to correct
The sources cited by The Guardian do not describe a wholesale replacement of the workforce: agents require precise instructions and constant oversight. One entrepreneur says he spent much of his time correcting mistakes made by agents in recruitment, such as confusing candidates with similar names or producing fabricated information in résumés.
This points to a change in the skills required: the ability to coordinate and delegate, rather than years of experience, and the need to manage several agents with different tasks in parallel. The article also reports cases in which customers interact with sales agents without fully realizing their nature, even flirting or asking for discounts off-script.
Adoption is growing, but productivity remains to be demonstrated
The picture outlined by the newspaper remains limited to the startups interviewed and their executives' statements. The text cites a McKinsey survey according to which about 40% of large organizations used AI agents between May 2025 and June 2026, compared with 27% the previous year, and a Boston Consulting Group report according to which companies expect to reduce their workforce by 10-15% in the coming years.
To temper expectations, The Guardian recalls that MIT research currently finds no significant productivity gains linked to AI. It therefore remains to be verified what the real scale of adoption outside Silicon Valley is, the quality of results over time and the employment consequences: on these points the material offers partial indications and does not allow definitive conclusions.
