Phase 2: Building Human-Agent AI Teams at Work

Blog 2: Phase 2 – Human + Agent Teams

Sixth City AI | AI Adoption Series: Part 2 of 3

The Rise of AI Teammates

Phase 2: Human + Agent Teams

In Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index, Phase 2 marks the point where AI becomes more than a helper—it starts acting like a teammate. Instead of just drafting emails or summarizing docs, AI agents now take on full tasks: scanning support tickets, managing follow-ups, organizing CRM entries, or gathering research.

Here, people are working with AI—not just using it. The goal shifts from saving a few minutes to actually growing your team’s output without needing to hire.

Is This a Bigger Leap?

Yes, but it’s still within reach—especially for small and mid-sized teams open to trying automation tools like Copilot Studio, Zapier, or other no-code platforms.

You’ll need to:

• Assign clear tasks that AI can handle start to finish
• Be okay letting AI manage pieces of critical work
• Help your team learn to guide, refine, and trust their 'digital coworkers.'

That said, this doesn’t mean you need to change your whole company overnight. Many businesses start with a single department pilot.

From a Manager’s Point of View

This is when AI stops being a helper—and starts pulling its weight on the team.  You might notice:

• Less busywork for staff
• New agent “playbooks” written by your team
• People jumping in only when the AI gets stuck
• Employees managing and tweaking their own AI tools

A marketing lead might assign research to a GPT-based tool. A service manager might have an agent sort incoming tickets by urgency. And you’ll start hearing comments like:

• “Let’s have the AI draft this first.”
• “Can we automate that step with an agent?”

Who’s Already Here?

This is the phase where Microsoft says “Frontier Firms” are pulling ahead. These companies:

• Have rolled out AI across teams
• Are already using agent-style tools
• See AI teammates as central to how they’ll grow

The stats back it up:

• 82% of leaders say this is a key year to rethink operations
• 80% expect to use agents to boost capacity
• 45% say “digital labor” is part of their people strategy

Human-agent AI teams are the next step; if your teams are testing automations, writing agent prompts, or talking about ways to “hand off” tasks to AI—you’re already on the edge of Phase 2.