The nature of work is changing fast. As AI and agents take on more of the execution, people have more agency than ever to unlock their ambition, direct what gets done, and own the outcomes. But most organizations are not keeping up, and\u00a0the gap between what their people can do and what they are built to support is widening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That tension sits at the center of the\u00a02026 Work Trend Index (WTI)\u00a0annual report<\/a>.\u00a0We analyzed trillions of anonymized Microsoft 365 productivity signals and surveyed 20,000 workers\u00a0using AI\u00a0across 10 countries. We also spoke with leading experts in AI, work, and organizational psychology.\u00a0We are building Microsoft 365 Copilot<\/a> with\u00a0the future of work in mind,\u00a0and our latest wave of Copilot helps employees, leaders, and organizations meet the moment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n AI lifts individual potential<\/p>\n Work is already\u00a0changing\u00a0at\u00a0the\u00a0individual level.\u00a0Our privacy-preserving analysis of more than 100,000 charts in Microsoft 365 Copilot shows\u00a049% of conversations support\u00a0cognitive work\u2014analyzing,\u00a0solving, and thinking\u00a0that once\u00a0required\u00a0deep\u00a0expertise.\u00a0More than half (58%) of AI users say\u00a0they are\u00a0producing work they\u00a0could not\u00a0have a year ago.\u00a0And\u00a0among\u00a0Frontier Professionals<\/a>\u2014the most advanced AI users in our research\u2014that\u00a0number jumps to 80%.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n That shift\u00a0starts early.\u00a0Work\u00a0no longer begins\u00a0from\u00a0a cold start\u2014it\u00a0begins with signals and\u00a0context\u00a0already in motion.\u00a0Microsoft 365 Copilot captures this and turns it into action, grounded in the knowledge of\u00a0Work IQ<\/a>\u00a0and protected with Enterprise Data Protection.\u00a0Copilot\u2019s agentic\u00a0capabilities<\/a> take multi-step, app-native actions directly\u00a0in your\u00a0documents, worksheets,\u00a0and presentations\u2014helping you\u00a0move from\u00a0intent to outcome\u00a0faster.<\/p>\n The\u00a0people moving the fastest are those that\u00a0decided\u00a0where to delegate and what to own. They build systems that work on their behalf. And they\u00a0reinvest the time saved\u00a0to expand\u00a0what they can do while staying responsible for the thinking. For example,\u00a0they\u00a0are\u00a0looking around corners\u00a0using\u00a0Copilot\u00a0in Outlook<\/a>\u00a0to proactively\u00a0help manage meetings\u2014not just schedule them once, but to manage the cadence and wind them down when\u00a0necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n The job of every leader is to rearchitect work<\/p>\n The\u00a0report\u00a0shows that as employees move from executing work to designing it, the constraint\u00a0between what their employees can do and what their organizations are built to support\u00a0shifts.\u00a0We found that only 1 in 4\u00a0AI users\u00a0in an organization\u00a0say their leadership is clearly and consistently aligned\u00a0on\u00a0AI. In fact,\u00a065% of AI users fear falling behind if they\u00a0do not use AI to\u00a0adapt quickly, yet almost half (45%) say it feels safer to focus on current goals than to redesign how work gets done with AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is what we call the Transformation Paradox: in plain and simple language,\u00a0the same forces accelerating AI adoption are also holding us back.\u00a0<\/p>\n Resolving this paradox\u00a0requires a different kind of leadership:\u00a0designing how work flows between\u00a0people\u00a0and agents\u00a0across an organization. Microsoft Agent 365<\/a> is a unified\u00a0control\u00a0plane\u00a0that keeps\u00a0agents governed, observable, and secure.\u00a0Agent 365\u00a0is now generally available, with new capabilities in preview to discover\u00a0and\u00a0manage\u00a0shadow AI\u00a0agents, including local agents like OpenClaw and Claude Code. Leaders must focus on defining the right outcomes and making the\u00a0right\u00a0judgement calls that move\u00a0work\u00a0forward\u00a0with clarity of intent.<\/p>\n Every\u00a0organization\u00a0is a learning system<\/p>\n We analyzed responses from our global survey and tested a broad set of organizational, individual, and demographic factors against self-reported AI impact\u2014whether employees say AI helps them produce higher quality work, collaborate more effectively, expand the type of work they do, and more.\u00a0The result shows that organizational factors like culture, manager support, and talent practices account for more than 2x the reported AI impact of individual factors like mindset and behavior (67% vs 32%).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n How organizations close the gap with Microsoft 365 Copilot<\/p>\n The firms that build a new operating model today\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0just move faster in the short term.\u00a0They\u2019ll\u00a0build something more durable, setting themselves up to create value in ways that we\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0yet conceive\u00a0of:\u00a0an\u00a0organization that learns faster than its\u00a0competitors, compounds its own intelligence, and gets harder to\u00a0catch\u00a0with every cycle.\u00a0Microsoft 365 Copilot<\/a> brings that vision to work.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Organizations need to connect data across systems\u00a0to move from isolated tasks to coordinated work.\u00a0Copilot is part of the system where work happens\u2014built into the Microsoft apps you use every day<\/a>,\u00a0with agentic capabilities in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, grounded in your work data\u00a0and connected to the other apps you rely on.\u00a0Earlier this year we introduced Copilot Cowork<\/a>\u00a0and today it is available on iOS and Android, so you can delegate work from your phone, pick it back up on your desktop, and keep tasks moving along the way without breaking the flow.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Connectors and plugins bring together data across your apps and systems, allowing Copilot and\u00a0Cowork<\/a>\u00a0to better understand your business context. Custom plugins and\u00a0native plugins with Fabric<\/a> and Microsoft Dynamics 365<\/a> are now available in\u00a0Cowork, with partner integrations available in the coming weeks, like London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Miro,\u00a0monday.com,\u00a0S&P Global Energy, and\u00a0more.\u00a0Our first wave of\u00a0federated\u00a0Copilot connectors are generally available\u00a0today from partners like HubSpot,\u00a0LSEG, Moody\u2019s and Notion in Microsoft 365 and Researcher. They will also be\u00a0available\u00a0in\u00a0Excel\u00a0this summer.<\/p>\n Get started today<\/p>\n Frontier Firms<\/a>\u00a0pulling\u00a0ahead\u00a0are\u00a0turning everyday activities into a system of learning.\u00a0Microsoft 365 Copilot<\/a>\u00a0brings that system into the flow of work, connecting context across people, data, and apps, while\u00a0Microsoft\u00a0Agent 365<\/a> brings the control needed to reuse and scale\u00a0these systems\u00a0across the organization.\u00a0The opportunity in front of every leader and organization is to take control: to build a place where agents amplify what people can do, where human judgement stays at the center of the work that matters, and where we wall have the agency to decide what comes next. Microsoft 365 E7<\/a> is\u00a0built on these foundations and is\u00a0now\u00a0generally available\u00a0for you to get started today.\u00a0<\/p>\n The full\u00a0Work Trend Index\u00a0report on\u00a0WorkLab<\/a> explores how this shift is already\u00a0taking place.\u00a0<\/p>\n