Here's what caught my eye in the world of AI this week:

1. The rules of business are changing. So are the players.

Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index doesn’t pull punches: the classic firm model is being replaced. Enter the Frontier Firm—a leaner, faster, agent-powered entity where humans set the vision and AI executes at scale. Think of it as the corporate version of Iron Man’s suit: human control, AI power.

• 82% of leaders say 2025 is a pivotal year to reset strategy

• Human-agent teams are already live in 1 in 4 companies

• The org chart is about to get a full system upgrade

ACTION BYTE: Start thinking like a systems architect. You’re not just leading people anymore—you’re engineering capacity.

Quote of the week

2. Will AI help get us closer to our higher purpose? I think so.

3. You don’t need to hire faster—you need to hire smarter.

   Frontier Firms aren’t winning with more people—they’re scaling with more capacity. Human-agent teams are shifting the paradigm: agents act as digital colleagues who never sleep, learn fast, and optimize relentlessly.

• 80% of leaders will use agents to close the capacity gap

• Agents now handle full workflows in nearly half of orgs

• Org design is becoming outcome-based, not role-based

ACTION BYTE: Map your team’s biggest capacity gap—and assign an agent.

4. AI fluency is the new literacy gap.

Frontier Firms are evolving fast—but not everyone is coming along. Leaders are racing ahead with agent strategies, while employees are still learning the basics.

• Leaders are outpacing employees on every AI adoption measure

• Many employees lack agent experience or prompting habits

• Closing this gap is what makes AI transformation actually work

ACTION BYTE:
Set a 90-day plan to raise AI fluency across your organization. If you launched your org today, what would be human—and what wouldn’t?

5. Think like a founder - of a Frontier Firm

2025 marks the moment AI stops being an enhancement and becomes the foundation. For a CEO in Silicon Valley, that doesn’t just mean greenlighting Copilot or launching an agent pilot. It means treating AI as a systemic shift that demands full operational re-architecture—just like cloud, mobile, and SaaS once did.The most progressive firms are now treating AI as headcount, strategy, and operating model. Agents aren’t tools—they’re team members. AI isn’t a department—it’s an execution layer.

The question is no longer “How do we adopt AI?” It’s “How would we build this company today—if agents were available from day one?”

• AI becomes structure: Org design must evolve to reflect human-agent teaming, fluid team formation, and output-based “Work Charts”
• AI becomes talent: Hiring plans must now include agent deployment, management bandwidth, and digital labor ROI tracking
• AI becomes infrastructure: Strategic planning should shift from “bolt-on AI” to “AI-native workflows” across every core function

CEO Summary
This is your AWS moment. Just as compute became scalable and elastic, intelligence now scales horizontally through the organization. That means every product team, every operations group, every customer touchpoint must be re-evaluated: what’s the optimal blend of human intuition and agent execution?

It also means revisiting fundamentals:

• What’s our agent onboarding process?

• Where does intelligence sit in our org structure—Product? Ops? A new “Intelligence Resources” unit?

• Do we have a human-agent ratio plan per function?

• What does agent-driven performance management look like?

High-performing orgs are already integrating agents into supply chain ops, finance, marketing, and customer support. At scale. With outcomes.

If you’re not there yet—it’s not too late, but it’s getting late fast.

ACTION BYTE:
Appoint a Chief Agent Officer or Intelligence Operations lead. Treat this as a generational redesign. What cloud was to IT, agents will be to org design.

6. Sunday Funnies 🤣 . No funnies this week as I am mourning the passing of my brother and i can’t think of anything funny.

7. The future org chart? Dynamic, agent-filled, and flatter than a startup pitch deck.

With AI agents scaling expertise on demand, companies are ditching rigid structures for “Work Charts”—goal-oriented models powered by agents.

• Top firms build teams around missions—not functions

• Human-agent ratios now determine agility and scale

• The “AI strategist” is the new team MVP

ACTION BYTE:

Design your next project team like a startup—lean, outcome-focused, agent-augmented.

Here’s Why Over 4 Million Professionals Read Morning Brew

• Business news explained in plain English

• Straight facts, zero fluff, & plenty of puns

• 100% free

See for yourself

8. Forget job descriptions—start writing agent playbooks.

The real frontier isn’t just AI adoption—it’s AI delegation. As more tasks shift to agents, the humans who thrive will be those who can direct them strategically.

• 38% of teams expect to redesign workflows for AI this year

• 36% of companies plan to train employees on agent management

• Managing agents is becoming core to performance

ACTION BYTE: Add AI management to every role’s scope—before your competitors do.

BYTE SUMMARY

The Frontier Firm isn’t a prediction—it’s a prototype. The 2025 Work Trend Index shows how organizations are rapidly shifting from legacy structure to outcome-based, AI-powered scale. Human-agent teaming, intelligence-on-demand, and agile Work Charts are more than buzz—they’re the new backbone of business. If the internet forced us to digitize, AI is forcing us to redesign. Time to grab the blueprint.

Until next time, take it one bit at a time!

Rob

YouTube | SV AI Think Tank Meetup | LinkedIn | Your Free AI PRD

Thank you for scrolling all the way to the end! As a bonus check out:

P.S.

💎 Discover Handpicked Gems in Your Inbox! 💎

Join thousands of satisfied readers and get our expertly curated selection of top newsletters delivered to you. Subscribe now for free and never miss out on the best content across the web!