LAS is an award-winning provider of elearning consultancy, design, development and training services in the UK and internationally.
Established in 2005 as LearningAge Solutions, we work with some of the best known organisations in the world to boost their performance through the innovative use of learning technologies. Working in partnership with our customers, we draw on proven principles from human behaviour, how people learn and how the brain works to create impactful digital learning solutions with real return on investment.
Tess is a director of LAS. She has worked in a learning environment for over twenty years. First, as a senior manager in universities, moving into digital learning ten years ago.
By Tess Robinson
Posted 3 July 2025
2025 is proving to be a pivotal moment for businesses worldwide. Artificial Intelligence isn't just a buzzword anymore; it's fundamentally reshaping how we work and learn. For Learning & Development (L&D), the challenge has moved beyond simply training people on new AI tools. It's now about cultivating an entirely new way of thinking: the "Agent Boss" mindset.
The relentless pace of the modern workday
Before we dive into the "Agent Boss" concept, let's consider the environment AI is entering. Many organisations are grappling with what we call the "infinite workday". The lines between professional and personal life have blurred significantly. According to the Microsoft Work Trend Index 2025, 40% of workers are online by 6 am, reviewing emails, and nearly a third are still in their inboxes at 10 pm. The sheer volume of digital communication is staggering – the average worker receives 117 emails daily and 153 Microsoft Teams messages every weekday, leading to constant interruptions.
In our client consulting work in learning and technology adoption, we've experienced first hand how this relentless digital noise and fragmented focus mean that one in three employees simply can't keep up with the pace. The human cost is clear, with one in four UK workers reporting that their job negatively affects their mental and/or physical health.
This intense pressure creates a real 'capacity gap'. While 53% of leaders are pushing for increased productivity, 80% of the global workforce don't feel that they have enough time or energy for their current tasks. This is the challenging landscape from which AI offers a potential way out.
AI: A powerful solution but it demands a rethink
AI is quickly becoming an "essential durable good: abundant, affordable and available on demand". Business leaders are certainly keen to harness this power, with 82% confident that they'll be deploying digital labour to expand workforce capacity within the next 12 to 18 months.
However, simply bolting AI on to existing, often inefficient, workflows risks merely accelerating a broken system. The real power of AI lies in fundamentally rethinking knowledge work, allowing humans to focus on what humans do best: creativity, critical judgement an building meaningful connections. This isn't just about automation; it's about a complete redesign of how work is conceived and executed.
The emergence of the "Agent Boss"
In this reimagined future, teams will form around specific goals, with AI agents expanding the scope and capabilities of human employees. This leads to a crucial new role for every employee: the "Agent Boss". Coined by Microsoft, the "Agent Boss" is a "human manager of one or more agents".
As an "Agent Boss", individuals will be responsible for building, delegating to, and managing AI agents to amplify their personal and team impact. This is a significant shift in individual roles and responsibilities and an enormous upskilling task for the organisation.
At the CIPD Festival of Work earlier this month, one of the speakers on the 'Fit for the Future' Panel was talking about the UK Government's Essential Digital Skills Framework. This is a list of basic digital skills that it's considered important for everyone to have. For example; turning on a device, connecting to wifi, setting up an email account and messaging on platforms like WhatsApp. I listened, slightly aghast, as the speaker told us that, of the 20 'skills for work' in that framework, 52% of the workforce don't have competency in all 20! This includes 1 in 5 people in the tech sector (!!) and 1 in 3 high earners.
Written in 2019, the Essential Digital Skills Framework doesn't even touch on AI. There is a HUGE and glaring disparity between the AI agent fuelled near-future we imagine and the digital skill level of our people. with 51% of managers anticipating that AI training and upskilling will become a core responsibility for their teams within the next five years, L&D folk - we have some serious upskilling work to do!
Aside from skills associated with effectively employing AI agents and generative AI, managers' roles will also change, as they evolve from overseeing purely human teams to complex human-AI collaborations. This has implications for management and leadership development, that people are only just beginning to consider.
Cultivating the "Thought Partner" mindset
The rapid advancement of AI means that 70% of the skills used in most jobs will change by 2030. This whirlwind evolution demands continuous adaptation and proactive learning strategies to keep up. For starters, basic AI literacy for ALL is essential. Try talking to your friends and family who don't work in a tech-first industry like ours. Ask them what they know about AI and whether they've used it. You will likely find that they know very little.
Once the foundations are in place (and continuously updated to to keep pace with rapid advancements), we can work on fostering competencies around managing AI agents, adaptability, proficiency in process automation and innovative thinking. This will require a mindset shift. Currently, the workforce is almost evenly split between those who view AI as a command-based tool (53%) and those who see it as a thought partner (46%).
Cultivating a "thought partner mindset" is absolutely essential for effective collaboration with AI agents. This means teaching employees not just how to operate AI tools but how to effectively collaborate with AI: how to iterate its outputs, delegate tasks efficiently, provide context-rich prompts, refine generated content and apply a critical eye to identify any flawed reasoning or output.
L&D is central to this transformation. We must proactively equip managers with new leadership capabilities, including AI literacy, the ability to delegate effectively to AI, crafting precise prompts with context, refining AI outputs and critically evaluating AI-generated reasoning.
Practical steps for AI leaders
To successfully navigate this shift and cultivate an "Agent Boss" mindset, your L&D strategy needs to evolve. Here's what I recommend:
The AI era isn't just about technology; it's about a fundamental shift in how humans interact with work and with intelligent systems. The "Agent Boss" mindset isn't merely a new skill. It's a new way of operating, demanding a proactive and strategic L&D approach.
By focussing on comprehensive AI literacy, fostering a truly collaborative mindset and empowering your employees to effectively manage their digital colleagues, it will be possible for organisations to unlock unprecedented levels of productivity, innovation and human potential.
