The AI promise was automation. The reality? Managing digital workers

When artificial intelligence agents first arrived, they came with a tantalising promise: autonomous “digital workers” that would finally free humans from corporate drudgery. As businesses across Asia are discovering, however, the reality is quite the opposite – more work, new friction and a whole new layer of management.

When Xiao Mengjie, an AI product marketing manager at a Big Tech firm in Shanghai, recently assigned two AI agents what she described as a simple task, she expected efficiency. Instead, she got corporate gridlock.

Rather than dividing the workload, her agent and her supervisor’s agent locked in a prolonged discussion over responsibilities, debating who should verify details and which one should take ownership of different tasks, in a spectacle not unlike the human bureaucracy they had been hired to replace.

“It became very formal and cumbersome,” Xiao said. “Agents can create communication overhead too.”