The Financial Times recently conducted an extensive evaluation of AI agents developed by major tech companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. The analysis aimed to assess how effectively these AI tools perform common office tasks integral to daily professional routines, providing insight into the current state of workplace AI, its practical uses, and its future potential in autonomy and personalization. The evaluation covered a range of typical office tasks such as summarizing news, drafting emails, creating meeting summaries, planning travel, and generating social media content—functions professionals might delegate to AI to boost productivity and efficiency. In news summarization, AI agents from Perplexity, Anthropic (notably its Claude agent), and OpenAI’s ChatGPT produced more detailed, comprehensive summaries than Google’s Gemini, highlighting their superior ability to extract relevant information and offer clear insights for informed decision-making. For email drafting, Microsoft 365’s AI, Google’s Gemini, and Apple’s ChatGPT implementation generated usable drafts that, while not perfect, served as effective foundations to expedite standard communication. Apple’s outputs stood out as the most cohesive and polished, reflecting a refined integration of AI for practical office use. Meeting summaries from Google’s Gemini and Microsoft 365 were generally helpful, capturing key discussion points despite minor factual errors. This capability underscores AI’s advancing role in managing context-rich, detailed tasks, saving users time on reviewing extensive notes. More complex tasks requiring higher autonomy, like booking restaurants and travel planning, were tested with OpenAI’s Operator and Anthropic’s Computer Use. Operator completed tasks faster, whereas Computer Use excelled in selecting appropriate travel options.

Despite these strengths, both still lagged behind manual execution in precision and efficiency, suggesting AI currently assists best as a background aid rather than fully automating such tasks. Regarding social media content creation, tools such as Synthesia, Pika, and Meta AI were evaluated for visual content production. Synthesia’s strength lies in creating realistic avatars tailored for corporate videos, while Pika and Meta AI offer more creative but sometimes less professional styles, enriching social media strategies with innovative visual options. Overall, the Financial Times’ findings reveal AI’s significant potential to streamline routine office work, lessen employee workloads, and improve productivity through automation and intelligent assistance. Although still evolving and with limitations, AI technologies are rapidly improving in functionality and personalization. Experts expect AI agents to soon handle more complex tasks autonomously, better adapt to user preferences, and integrate smoothly into daily workflows. As AI matures, organizations can anticipate these tools becoming invaluable in transforming routine task execution, freeing human workers to focus on higher-value activities involving creativity, strategic thinking, and nuanced decision-making. The growth of AI in the workplace signifies not only a technological breakthrough but also a shift toward more efficient and innovative professional environments.