AI Agents are joining your team, here’s what that means for your people
Twelve months ago, “AI at work” mostly meant a chat window you typed into. In 2026, that’s changed: AI has started to do the work, pulling the report, drafting the reply, checking the data, then handing it back for a person to decide. Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index found the number of active AI agents grew 15 times in a year (18x in large enterprises).
For most Australian businesses, the question isn’t whether agents are coming. It’s what they mean for the people already doing the work. And the data is reassuring: as agents take on the busywork, people aren’t pushed out, they’re freed up to do more of the work only they can do. Here’s how that shift is playing out, and how to lead it well.
From single copilot to a team of agents
The first wave of AI gave everyone an assistant. The second gives you something closer to a team, one agent gathers the information, another analyses it, a third drafts the output, while a person sets the goal and owns the outcome.
Analysts expect this to become normal fast. Gartner predicts that by 2028, 33% of enterprise software will include agentic AI, up from less than 1% in 2024, and that at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously by agents. In Australia that future is arriving early: Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise 2026 found 69% of Australian organisations already use autonomous AI agents.
What an agent team actually looks like
Strip away the jargon and it’s simple. Picture a monthly client report that used to eat half a day: one agent pulls the numbers, one drafts the commentary against last month, and your account manager reviews, adds the judgement calls, and sends it. The person didn’t do less thinking, they did more of the thinking that matters.
That’s the pattern the Work Trend Index describes across four modes of working with AI, delegation, collaboration, asking, and exploration. The skill isn’t using AI for everything; it’s knowing which mode each task calls for.
The Australian reality check
Here’s the part the hype skips. Using agents and getting value from them are very different things.
Deloitte found that while 69% of Australian organisations use agents, only 22% have advanced governance to manage them. Gartner is blunter: it expects more than 40% of agentic AI projects to be cancelled by the end of 2027, undone by unclear value, rising costs and weak controls. And across the wider market, the Australian Government’s National AI Centre reports 43% of Australian SMEs have adopted AI in some form, with trust the number-one barrier for those holding back.
“69% of Australian organisations use AI agents. Just 22% have the governance to manage them.” Deloitte, State of AI in the Enterprise 2026
The lesson isn’t “slow down.” It’s that the winners redesigned the work around the agents. The Work Trend Index makes the same point: organisational factors like culture and management drive more than twice the impact of individual effort.
Where to start (without betting the farm)
You don’t need an agent army. You need one well-chosen workflow and the guardrails to run it safely.
- Pick a high-volume, low-risk workflow.
- Reporting, first-draft comms, data reconciliation. Prove value where a mistake is easy to catch.
- Be clear about what stays human, and say it out loud. This is where you address the elephant in the room.
- AI isn’t removing people from work; it’s changing where human value sits. As agents take on the execution, your people gain agency, more room to set direction, make the calls and own the outcome. The skills that rise in value are judgement and quality control: 86% of AI users already treat AI output as a starting point, not the answer.
- Name the decisions that always need a person, and tell your team plainly, agents handle the busywork so they can do the work only they can do.
- Put governance in before you scale, not after.
- Who reviews agent output? What can an agent access? That’s your 22%-vs-everyone-else moment.
- Measure the outcome, not the activity.
- More output isn’t the goal; better results are.
“But won’t this take people’s jobs?”
It’s the first question most teams ask, so answer it, don’t sidestep it.
The global picture points to reshaping, not replacement: the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 expects AI and automation to create 170 million roles and displace 92 million by 2030, a net gain of 78 million jobs, with AI skills the fastest-growing of all. The honest message for your people: some tasks will move to agents, roles will shift, and the way to stay ahead is to build the judgement and AI-direction skills that are becoming more valuable. Businesses that pair this with visible reskilling keep their best people. The ones that stay silent lose them to anxiety.
The businesses pulling ahead, what Microsoft calls Frontier Firms, treat every agent workflow as something to capture and reuse, so a win in one team becomes a capability across the org.
How Diamond IT can help
If AI is already in your business but you’re still facing the real challenge of making it work consistently, securely, and at scale, then the next step is moving beyond ad hoc adoption.
We help organisations move beyond scattered adoption to a structured, practical approach. Aligning your people, processes and governance so AI actually delivers measurable business value.
Whether it’s:
- Establishing clear AI governance and guardrails.
- Assessing your current AI readiness and capability gaps.
- Embedding AI into workflows, decision-making and KPIs.
- Or supporting leaders through change and adoption strategy.
We focus on turning individual momentum into organisation-wide impact.
Ready to take the next step? Let’s chat, call us at 1300 307 907, send an email to enquiries@diamondit.com.au or fill out the form below.
