A new Work Trend Index special report1 based on trillions of globally aggregated and anonymized productivity signals in Microsoft 365 reveals a new state of work: a seemingly infinite workday. Our data suggests that work is bleeding into early mornings, late nights, and everything in between: confirming what many people already feel.
- 40% of people online at 6 AM are already reviewing email to prioritize their day.
- The average employee receives 100+ emails and 150+ Microsoft Teams messages each day.
- Most employees send or receive 50+ Teams messages outside of core working hours.
In our review, we saw that nearly one in three employees say it’s impossible to keep up with today’s pace of work. At a time when knowledge work has reached peak inefficiency, AI can be a lifeline—but it’s only part of the solution. Now is the time for leaders to rethink how work and teams are structured or risk accelerating a broken system. That means focusing on the 20% of work that drives 80% of the impact; designing flatter, more agile teams around the work chart, not the org chart; and reskilling every employee to be an agent boss.
Frontier Firms—organizations rethinking work with AI at the center—are already seeing the impact. Our data shows that employees at these firms are more likely to say their company is thriving, more likely to say they can take on more work, and report having more opportunities to do meaningful work.
Let’s take a closer look at three strategies every leader needs to know now to adopt a Frontier Firm mindset:
1. Apply the 80/20 rule
Yesterday’s work practices won’t cut it in the age of AI. The companies that will win won’t just work harder, they’ll work smarter—focusing on the 20% of work that delivers 80% of the impact—and ruthlessly streamline the rest.
AI can now reason and solve complex problems in truly remarkable ways, giving every business intelligence on demand that will rewrite the rules of business and transform knowledge work as we know it. Traditionally, companies have hired more employees or tapped more capital (financing, infrastructure, equipment) to increase output. Now, they can add digital labor in the form of reasoning agents to the mix.
Take Researcher in Microsoft 365 Copilot, an agent that tackles multistep research at work, delivering insights with greater quality and accuracy than previously possible. It combines OpenAI’s deep research model with Microsoft 365 Copilot’s advanced orchestration and deep search capabilities. One good Researcher use case: white papers. I recently had a brief window—between a business trip and a family wedding—to deliver a timely paper to my team. In the past it would have taken me a few days to research, analyze, write, and edit. Working with Researcher, however, I was able to create a good draft, edit it in a single work block, and deliver a solid white paper to my team within a couple of hours.
2. Redesign for the work chart
Today, most companies structure their people and teams around org charts—marketing, finance, engineering—that are too rigid to leverage the opportunity that intelligence on demand offers. Frontier Firms organize differently, forgoing the org chart and embracing the work chart: agile, outcome-driven teams that form around a goal and use AI to fill skill gaps. On my own team at Microsoft, we’re looking at what we call the “Hollywood Model”: the right talent assembles to make a hit movie and then moves on to the next project. This means lean, dynamic teams that work in short (but intense) sprints, and faster pivots—and adding agents to the team.
Analyst thinks like a skilled data scientist, so your team can go from raw data to insights in minutes. Your team can use it to assess how discounts affect customer behavior, identify top customers who aren’t fully using products they’ve purchased, and visualize product sentiment and usage trends to inform go-to-market decisions.
3. Empower every employee to become an agent boss
As agents increasingly join the workforce, we’re seeing the rise of the agent boss: an employee who builds, delegates to, and manages agents to amplify their impact—working smarter, scaling faster, and taking control of their career in the age of AI. From the boardroom to the front line, people need to think like the CEO of an agent-powered startup, directing teams of agents with specialized skills like research and data analysis.
We’ve made it easy to build agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot using Microsoft Copilot Studio. These agents can handle approvals, generate orders, manage workflows, and more. A sales professional might use one agent to draft client proposals and another to surface high-potential leads from CRM data. A researcher on my team uses three agents to supercharge his workflow: one scans for new research, another runs complex statistical analyses, and a third drafts briefs and summaries. By offloading time-consuming tasks, he can focus on high-level analysis and new ideas. Another agent boss at Microsoft manages his team of agents much like you would human employees—upskilling underperformers, providing regular feedback, and even conducting performance reviews.
Reset the rhythm of work
Work is being rewritten in real time. Leaders have an opportunity to help every employee conquer the infinite workday, with a combination of AI and a Frontier Firm mindset. By applying the 80/20 rule, redesigning for the work chart, and empowering every employee to become an agent boss, every organization can transform into a Frontier Firm and seize the opportunity ahead.
1 Internal Microsoft findings, research completed worldwide.
