Anxious about being replaced by AI, some workers have a new flex: bossing around armies of bots

As AI threatens to upend white-collar work, some professionals are attempting to flip the script. Instead of being outboxed by the bots, they're building their own — and bragging about how many AI agents they manage.

Mason Scurry says his AI consulting firm has more than 30 AI "employees" — complete with names, job titles, designated areas of responsibility, as well as personalities, backstories, and profile pics — that work around the clock for less than a penny an hour. Frankie, his chief of staff, is a longtime hotel head concierge from Bensonhurst, who keeps track of people and tasks, handles requests, and generally helps Scurry get things done. "Whatever it is, he knows a guy," his bio, written by Claude Code, reads. Penny, his "precise and never alarmist" token auditor, hunts down waste in how the firm uses AI models and "treats every wasted token as somebody's money."

Maayan Sarig, a communications manager at Meta, says she manages a team of six, only one of whom is human. One agent, Moti, watches her work flow and suggests where she can save time. Another, Yonit, acts as a "cynical journalist," stress-testing pitches before she sends them out. "I don't just write," Sarig says. "I design the agents that write."