Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian workers and business leaders are increasingly aligned in adopting artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools, also known as intelligent agents, to enhance productivity and manage rising workloads, according to Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index.

According to BERNAMA News Agency, Microsoft highlighted a growing capacity gap, with 61 per cent of Malaysian leaders acknowledging the need for increased productivity, while 83 per cent of the country’s workforce — including both employees and leaders — reporting that they lack sufficient time or energy to complete their work. Microsoft 365 telemetry data shows that on average, employees are interrupted every two minutes by meetings, emails, or pings, demonstrating the need for intelligent agents.

Microsoft’s data, which tracks user interactions with productivity tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, provides insights into which features are used most frequently and how long users spend on tasks. With the rise of agents capable of reasoning, planning, and acting as digital labour, roles and organisations are expected to evolve to scale capacity as needed.

Already, 89 per cent of Malaysian leaders believe this is a pivotal year to rethink core strategies and operations, with 86 per cent expressing confidence in using AI agents as digital team members to expand workforce capacity in the next 12 months to 18 months, both significantly above global averages.

Laurence Si, managing director of Microsoft Malaysia, stated that Malaysia is positioning itself as a regional leader in AI transformation, with the latest Work Trend Index findings underscoring this progress. Malaysia is proving how organisations can turn ambition into action and scale impact through intelligent agents, with 86 per cent of business leaders confident in using AI agents to expand workforce capacity and more than half already automating entire workstreams.

Microsoft also highlighted the shift from rigid organisational structures to more flexible ‘work charts’, where teams are formed around specific outcomes rather than traditional functions like marketing or finance. More than half of Malaysian leaders (51 per cent) are already using agents to fully automate workstreams or business processes, above the global average of 46 per cent.

The rise of ‘frontier firms,’ organisations powered by hybrid teams of humans and agents, is another significant trend. Workers and leaders at these frontier firms are more than twice as likely to say their companies are thriving, able to take on additional work, and report having opportunities to do meaningful work. In Malaysia, workers at frontier firms report significantly higher levels of opportunity for meaningful work (92 per cent) and the ability to take on more work (58 per cent), far exceeding the Asia-Pacific average of 77 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively.

Microsoft anticipates that within the next two to five years, every organisation will begin the journey toward becoming a frontier firm. Expanding capacity with digital labour is a top priority for 44 per cent of Malaysian leaders in the next 12 months to 18 months, second only to upskilling (48 per cent). Beyond agents, 84 per cent of Malaysian leaders also say their company is considering adding new AI-focused roles, such as AI agent specialists, AI trainers, and AI workforce managers, to prepare for the future.

Both leaders and employees in Malaysia are fast becoming familiar with AI agents. However, 68 per cent of Malaysian business leaders report being highly familiar with AI agents, compared to just 39 per cent of employees. To bridge this gap, 59 per cent of Malaysian managers expect AI training to become a core responsibility for their teams in the next five years, with leaders expecting their teams to expand into areas like redesigning business processes with AI, building multi-agent systems, and training and managing agents.

Microsoft concluded that Malaysia’s early adoption of AI agents could provide significant competitive advantages over the next decade. Success will increasingly rely on effectively managing and delegating tasks to teams of specialised AI agents, from the boardroom to the front line.