2025 Work Trend Index Highlights the Rise of Frontier Firms: Here’s Why Operations Leaders Should Care

Operations leaders are entering a pivotal new era — and AI is quickly becoming their most valuable teammate.
The 2025 Work Trend Index shows that Operations is moving faster than most functions toward the rise of “Frontier Firms,” where AI agents act as digital labor to expand capacity, streamline workflows, and accelerate decision-making. With 65% of leaders already using AI regularly and 75% trusting it for high-stakes work, the function is shifting from manual operations to intelligent orchestration.

Leaders are preparing their workforce to not only use AI, but to manage it — with nearly 40% expecting employees to become “agent bosses” who supervise, delegate to, and amplify outcomes through AI. At the same time, rising workloads and shrinking bandwidth make this transformation essential: 76% of operations leaders say they simply don’t have enough time or energy to keep up.

The bottom line? Operations is redefining what efficiency, agility, and scale look like — and the new blueprint is being built around AI-powered teams.

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