"The latest AI agents are beginning to move through systems more like teammates. They join projects, update plans, and act across teams. For the first time, organizations are effectively bringing on colleagues that can see more of the workplace than any single person ever could. I've spent years building tools to give teams clarity and save them time, so I see the upside. But that shift forces a harder question: what does it really mean for an AI to "see everything" in a workplace?"
"Most workplaces rely on role-based access and permissions to maintain order. People see only the information relevant to their role, and those boundaries shape how teams collaborate and how they resolve disagreements. AI agents complicate that system. If an agent has more access than it should, even by accident, it can surface information that changes how work is interpreted and shifts decisions away from the people meant to make them."
AI in the workplace is evolving from passive tools to active agents that join projects, update plans, and act across teams. Organizations now field agents that can aggregate visibility across systems beyond any single person's scope. The central ethical concern is whether agent access matches what a reasonable employee would encounter in normal job duties. Role-based access and permissions structure collaboration and dispute resolution. Agents with excessive access can surface sensitive information, change interpretations of work, and shift decision-making away from the humans designated to make those decisions. Early incidents often arise as small, surprising disclosures during routine queries.
Read at Fast Company
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