Employer FAQs About AI Agents

Imagine your virtual assistant did more than just respond to your questions or requests but actually took the initiative, performing complex tasks without needing instructions, learning and improving from each experience. Welcome to the world of AI agents: your virtual assistant on steroids. If you haven’t tried one already, there’s a good chance that you’ll dip your toe in the water in 2025. And there’s an even better chance that you’ll soon grow to rely on AI agents as indispensable tools at work and at home within the next few years. You have questions – and we have answers. Here is a series of Frequently Asked Questions employers have about AI agents.

What are AI agents?

AI agents are digital tools that make decisions and take actions without constant human oversight. They are unlike traditional automation that follows a script (imagine a clunky and frustrating chatbots). And they are unlike the Generative AI models you’ve been using to brainstorm ideas and write content.

To put it simply, they take your directives one step further. AI agents can assess situations, adapt to new information, and carry out tasks with a level of autonomy that previously required human intervention. Far beyond delivering mere output, they go out into the real world as your “agents” and take action on your behalf based on their training and your preferences.  

Are AI agents already being used?

You are probably interacting with AI-fueled chatbots on a frequent basis without even realizing it, as most major retail companies utilize some form of AI agent to build them. If you are missing a package that is showing delivered, odds are your first stop is an AI agent. Scheduling a telemed appointment? You guessed it, an AI agent will probably assist you in making sure you get to the correct doctor. If your food order isn’t what you expected and you jump online to get it corrected, odds are you are working with an AI agent.

How will they be used in the workplace?

Like digital employees, AI agents will be able to negotiate deals, handle HR queries, and even manage projects – all with a personal touch that makes them feel more human than robotic. They rely upon machine learning to improve over time and personalize interactions based on your preferences. AI agents represent a shift from reactive tools (like ChatGPT) to proactive partners in business operations.

Why am I hearing so much about them now?

2025 is being labeled as The Year of Agentic AI. Big-tech behemoths and emerging start-ups are all moving at breakneck speed to get in front of the agentic AI revolution, and they are unveiling new products and offerings (and press releases) each day to capture your attention.

So what do they know that you don’t? Isn’t this just the latest fad? The tech companies pushing AI agents certainly don’t think so. They firmly believe AI agents will be the technology that finally fulfills that much-heralded promise of getting a return on your AI investment. From an employer standpoint, deploying effective AI agents could soon allow you to optimize workflows, increase cross-departmental efficiencies, and reduce the number of new hires needed to complete lower-level tasks – freeing up your human workforce to focus on higher-value activities, innovation, and strategy.

What are some roles that AI agents can play in the business world?

• Customer Service Representatives. These aren’t your average chatbots with a pre-set limited response bank. Agentic AI chatbots learn from past interactions to personalize their responses. They can handle more nuanced queries, escalate issues intelligently, and even cross-sell products.
• HR Representatives. AI agents can answer employee questions about policies, benefit offerings, leave of absence requirements, or anything else HR would normally field – and even sign workers up for programs, change their benefit selections, complete paperwork, and more. Removing this repetitive work from human hands will reduce HR workloads, improve response times, and free up HR employees to deal with more complex situations.
• PTO Manager. AI agents can manage employees’ vacation and leave requests, make preliminary decisions about approvals, and even handle scheduling conflicts. They can also tell requesting employees what additional information may be needed when seeking a vacation or leave.
• Auto-Recruiter. AI agents go beyond screening resumes to actually contacting qualified candidates, conducting preliminary interviews (or scheduling them for you), and then providing hiring managers with detailed candidate assessments and recommendations for final interviews.
• Onboarding Specialist. AI agents can create new-hire accounts, share documents, and walk new employees through company policies.
• Training Coordinator. AI agents can identify employee skill gaps and suggest personalized training programs – even helping employees with registration and overseeing their work. They can also check in with employees who may be struggling through training modules to help them determine whether it’s a technology issue or identify for a manager if it’s a skills-based challenge.
• Performance Management Agent. AI agents review a year’s worth of an employee’s work product and communication, provide feedback, and suggest training or improvement plans based on data insights. They can even take the next step of creating a recommended evaluation for supervisors to use and conduct year-over-year analysis of the same employees to note trends.
• Employee Engagement Bot: AI agents can periodically check in with employees, gather feedback, and recommend morale-boosting initiatives.
• Meeting Coordinator. They can schedule meetings, prepare agendas, develop action items, and even take minutes during virtual meetings (but make sure you consider all applicable issues if you use a robot to take notes during meetings).

How can AI agents help professionals in their own line of work?

• Finding business opportunities. Once you identify a business segment you want to pursue, your agent can identify who you should connect with, find their contact information, and reach out to set up a meeting. They can even generate leads by engaging on social media platforms for you.
• Conducting research and creating reports. Agents can pull together comprehensive reports on industry trends, competitors, and potential market opportunities for you – and recommend your next steps to stay ahead of the competition.
• Making travel arrangements. From booking flights and hotels to creating itineraries, AI agents can handle all business travel logistics and remember your preferences (“no flights before 9:30 AM,” or “no flights before 9:30 AM, but I’ll take an 8:00 AM or later if it’s a nonstop”).
• Creating expense reports. The AI agent can sweep your emails, your credit card purchases, and any other data you have handy to create, submit, and oversee your expense report – following up until payment is received.
• Business development. In the near future, you will be able to tell an AI agent that you want to create a particular type of business. The AI agent will not only develop a recommended business plan, but then prepare the paperwork to form your corporate entity, develop and execute your marketing plan, and find seed funding for your business.

How could you use AI agents in your personal life?

• Vacation scheduling. AI agents can do more than just create the perfect itinerary for you. They will soon be able to recommend the best airplane tickets (having already scanned your calendar for the best time to travel and knowing your preference for aisle seats near the middle of the plane), select the best hotels, identify and book recreational activities, and make dinner reservations at places that fit your individual tastes.
• Personal finance management. Track your expenses, categorize your spending, create a recommended budget, suggest ways to save money, and help reallocate your portfolio.
• Health and fitness coach. Create personalized workout and diet plans, help establish realistic goals, track your progress, and adjust recommendations over time.
• Grocery shopping. Create grocery lists, comparison shop to find the best prices, locate the items online, and place orders for delivery.
• Home maintenance. Schedule home repairs, manage contractors, and remind you of routine maintenance tasks.
• Event Planning. Locate and book venues, select menus and order food, and manage invitations and RSVPs.

What are the major concerns we should have about AI agents?

As with any emerging technology, there are downsides to manage as you integrate AI agents into your business (and your life).

• Going rogue. Without proper guardrails, AI agents could take actions you never intended. In one example, an airline’s AI chatbot promised a customer that he could apply for a reduced bereavement fare after he bought a regular-priced ticket – but that wasn’t company policy. A court ended up having to order the airline to honor the deal. You’ll need to make sure your AI agents perform as intended and stay within the authorized boundaries (company policies, spending limits, time constraints, etc.). Some companies are dabbling with “AI Master Agents,” robots trained to monitor AI agent behavior to ensure they stay within the pre-set guardrails – but at some point, a human needs to be in the loop.
• Cybersecurity. AI agents will become prime targets for cybercriminals. If compromised, they could grant unauthorized access to sensitive company data or make fraudulent transactions. Robust security measures will be essential for using AI agents, including multi-factor authentication, encryption, and regular security audits.
• Bias and discrimination. Just as with any other AI system, AI agents learn from data. If that data is biased, agents using it can perpetuate and even amplify those biases, leading to discriminatory outcomes in hiring, promotions, and more. It’s the same “garbage in, garbage out” problem that has plagued AI developers (and employers) since the technology was introduced.
• Privacy and confidentiality concerns. AI agents often have access to sensitive data and communications. They may be trained on that data to benefit other users, and might even share it with third parties. It’s crucial to ensure the agents handle data in compliance with local privacy regulations and best practices, and stay out of places they don’t belong.
• Legal liability. Who is responsible when an AI agent makes a mistake? Like the court in the airline example above, government agencies have made it clear that employers can’t avoid responsibility for misconduct by pointing fingers at the AI developers when trouble arises. You should create clear internal guidelines for who will be responsible for responding when an AI agent makes a mistake.
• Employee trust. Employees may feel uneasy about AI agents taking over tasks or monitoring their work. Transparency about the purpose and limitations of AI agents is key to building trust. You should not deploy AI agents into your workplace without fully explaining the use, benefit, and overall impact they will have on your company and workforce. Employees need to understand how the AI agent is there to help the employees, not take over their job. Consider employee focus groups and beta testers before signing on an AI agent to ensure your evaluation involves multiple perspectives.
• Collateral regulatory issues. AI software functionality often implicates laws and regulations that weren’t written with these sorts of tools in mind. (Is an AI interviewer a lie detector? Can using AI to score applicants implicate background check laws?) Some questions may not be answered for years while they make their way through agency and court actions. It is critical to have a cross-disciplinary legal eye on any AI tool you’re considering, so be sure to involve counsel early in the process.

What’s the most important thing you can do to prepare for world involving AI agents?

Incorporate “AI Governance” – another major buzz phrase in 2025 – into your business planning. AI Governance is a system of internal controls your organization can deploy to ensure the safe and effective use of AI systems, including AI agents. It encompasses internal AI audits, policy development, training, vendor management, and adoption of risk-management systems. As AI regulation increases over the next year, regulators will expect all organization to have robust AI Governance programs. Here are the 10 first steps your business can take when it comes to AI Governance.

Conclusion

We will continue to provide the most up-to-date information on AI-related developments, so make sure you are subscribed to Fisher Phillips’ Insight System. If you have questions, contact your Fisher Phillips attorney, the authors of this Insight, or any attorney in our AI, Data, and Analytics Practice Group.