Organisations will soon have AI colleagues working alongside human employees in the workplace, fundamentally changing the future of work.
Prosus explores this transformative shift in a new research report, ‘The Rise of the Agentic Workforce: How Autonomous AI Agents Will Transform the Workplace’, produced in partnership with Dealroom.co, a leading global startup and venture capital intelligence platform.
The report examines the emergence of ‘Agentic AI’ – autonomous AI systems with the ability to make independent decisions, the capacity to learn and adapt, and to take ownership of complete tasks. This represents a fundamental shift in how AI technology is integrating into workplaces. This technology marks the beginning of the third wave of AI development, following predictive AI and generative AI.
“The rise of agentic AI represents a foundational change in how we’ll work with AI technology in the coming years,” says Fabricio Bloisi, CEO of Prosus. “We are past the tipping point of AI agent adoption and it is now firmly rooted in the workplace. 4
“Agentic AI companies are attracting billions of dollars of Venture Capital investment. At Prosus, we plan to hire the largest AI workforce in the industry this year, with AI agents working across our organisation from HR to customer support.”
Within the report, more than 1 500 AI agents have been mapped and categorised by application sectors, as well as platforms to build AI agents and tools to enhance their operations. View the map here.
Key findings from the report include:
- Agentic AI is gaining traction fast and we’re already past the tipping point of adoption. AI agents will transform the workplace by acting as digital co-workers rather than merely helpful tools. Coding Agents are the first to reach product-market fit, with companies like Cursor already among the fastest growing companies ever. Fully AI employees are months, rather than years away.
- Venture Capital funding for agentic AI is ramping up quickly. It is expected to total 10% of all AI funding rounds in 2025, amounting to $6,7-billion of investment, with Europe punching above its weight in its proportion of funding. Customer service and healthcare platforms are the most funded application areas, while Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and AI agent builders have outperformed within the category of ‘AI agent enablers’.
- We are heading towards a multi-agent future, where organisations will be structured differently, and which will reward entirely new skill sets. People will set the direction for their teams of agent-based ‘digital colleagues’, who help to carry out tasks. As AI takes on more routine tasks, people will need to evolve their skill sets, understand how to work effectively alongside AI systems, and guide AI performance, with a focus on strategic thinking and creative problem solving.