The role of Gen AI in the workplace is shifting from summarizing or creating content for single users to co-working and collaboration with multiple agents, according to Aparna Chennapragada, the chief product officer of Microsoft Experiences and Devices. “In the early phase, we were just adding AI to existing applications,” she said. “The second phase is now about co-working and collaborating with AI,” she said. With improvements in deep reasoning capabilities, AI is moving from basic automation to becoming a “thought partner” that can analyze complex problems and assist leaders in making better decisions, she said. However, the “more interesting” change will come in the third phase, which will be AI’s role in group collaboration, Chennapragada added. The human employee will interact with an AI agent that acts as a “digital chief of staff,” which in turn will manage a team of other AI agents that each specialize in different tasks or domains, she said. This shift will create what Chennapragada describes as a “cognitive energy surplus.” Instead of employees wasting time on repetitive, low-value tasks, AI will handle the routine while human workers focus on creativity, strategy and decision-making. In a few weeks, Microsoft is planning to launch an initiative combining deep reasoning capabilities with an enterprise’s knowledge graph as a foundation for custom AI agents, Chennapragada said.