As AI transforms how we work, the American workforce is worried that it will replace them, taking over decision-making and eliminating jobs. According to Gartner, “Agentic AI offers the promise of a virtual workforce that can offload and augment human work.” And you might soon meet your digital teammates as agentic AI systems move from promise to practice this year.
Your Digital Teammates: Friends Or Foes?
The Pew Research Center finds that 52% Of U.S. employees fear AI could take their jobs. But recent studies show that AI is helping, not hindering productivity. Even in situations where it’s eliminating jobs, it’s simultaneously creating new ones. In January 2025, AI eliminated over seven thousand jobs from 31 major tech companies, but it was good news in disguise. Laid-off tech workers pivoted careers amid ongoing AI-driven layoffs and found six-figure salaries, flourishing in careers in unexpected sectors.
A recent study shows that 61% of business leaders say AI’s automated tasks have improved their work-life balance, doing their busywork and freeing their time to focus on more important tasks. The Betterworks 2025 Global HR Research Report also reveals that 75% of employees want to use AI to support their career growth, while 96% insist it can help them advance internally.
Jamie Aitken, vice president of HR transformation at Betterworks argues that AI helps managers be more human. This is where AI-powered performance management makes a real impact,” Aitken states. “By enabling the kinds of conversations that lead to skill and career development, AI tools can help managers deliver more timely and personalized conversations, as well as more actionable feedback, making it easier to talk about growth and not just performance.”
The Birth Of Your Digital Teammates
I wanted to know more about the new technology called agentic AI systems or what experts describe as “your digital teammates.” I spoke with Kevin Frechette, co-founder and CEO at Fairmarkit, who is at the forefront of applying agentic AI. He tells me that 2025 is the year HR will evolve from autonomous AI that simply assists to agentic AI systems that act independently as teammates to help organizations operate on a global scale.
Frechette explains that autonomous AI usually focuses on completing a single task without human involvement, unaware of how that task fits into the bigger picture, whereas Agentic AI is workflow-aware and business-aware. “You’ve got a network of agents that collaborate, adapt and pass tasks to one another, all while aligning with broader business objectives” he clarifies. “It’s not just about automating a single step. It’s about automating the whole job, with people involved when and where they’re needed. That’s a huge shift. Autonomous and agentic AI both improve efficiency, but agentic AI brings a deeper level of context, coordination and scale.”
He describes how agentic AI systems are made up of multiple AI agents–all working together independently reasoning, acting and collaborating. “At its core, it’s a system of autonomous AI agents designed to handle complex, multi-step workflows, not just single tasks,” he points out. “These agents can make decisions, coordinate with one another, adapt to real-time inputs and escalate to a supervisor agent when needed. Think of it as a digital team built to move faster, scale smarter and work alongside your human workforce, with people still in control.”
To describe how your digital teammates might function, Frechette gives the example of procurement where one agent handles sourcing, another manages vendor compliance and another negotiates pricing. He describes how they’re all syncing with each other in real time. “The real value shows up when these systems operate seamlessly behind the scenes, reducing the manual lift for teams and speeding up execution without sacrificing control or transparency. At Fairmarkit, we’re seeing this play out in sourcing, where agents are actually handling work that used to take days in just minutes.”
Four Major Advantages Of Your Digital Teammates
Predictions are that by 2028, your agentic AI digital teammates will make at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions autonomously. Frechette believes HR leaders will be one of the earliest winners with less time spent on manual, administrative tasks and more focus on strategic, people-first workplace initiatives. He lists four major advantages that your digital teammates bring.
1. Speed execution. “AI agents can complete tasks in seconds that would otherwise take hours, from processing requests to generating reports to triggering follow-ups. This helps teams move faster, clear backlogs and boost performance. AI agents can sift through thousands of resumes, conduct initial interviews and synthesize feedback so hiring teams can handle second-round interviews and onward.”
2. Improve coordination. Agentic AI improves coordination across systems and functions. “Instead of relying on people to move information from tool to tool, agents talk to each other, hand off tasks and keep workflows moving without delays or dropped steps. On-boarding, for example, usually involves multiple workflows and hand-offs. Agentic AI can autonomously manage each step and ensure all the agents involved are communicating, so nothing gets lost in translation.”
3. Allow autonomy. Agentic AI introduces true autonomy, according to Frechette, “not just automating tasks but understanding context, making decisions and escalating when needed. That’s a game-changer for businesses looking to scale without losing control. AI agents that ‘talk’ to each other can guide employees across their entire lifecycle–from training to benefits to internal mobility–without added lift from HR teams.”
4. Lengthen human bandwidth. “Now, even small teams can mobilize a large number of agents to tackle work in parallel, turning a team of five into the output of fifty. That opens up entirely new possibilities for innovation, responsiveness and scale.”
A Final Word On Your Digital Teammates
Frechette predicts that looking ahead, your digital teammates of agentic AI will shift how companies operate across the board. “It makes advanced automation accessible to teams that don’t have big IT budgets or technical expertise,” he explains. “But it also raises new questions about ethics, oversight and accountability. That’s why the companies that invest in thoughtful design, transparency and human-in-the-loop controls will be the ones that lead the way when it comes to agentic AI.”
With AI agents working in sync, Frechette concludes that in a world where one employee can have 20 or 100 AI agents working in sync, you’re unlocking an entirely new level of productivity and execution. He insists that your digital teammates are more than automation–they’re your digital workforce.