What is an AI Employee?

The framing distinguishes this from a one-off automation or a single-session chatbot: an AI employee has a defined, recurring job, works continuously rather than only when explicitly invoked, and is typically evaluated against ongoing performance expectations the way a human role would be, response time, resolution rate, accuracy. This framing helps businesses reason about deployment the same way they'd think about hiring, defining scope, granting appropriate access, and reviewing performance. Treating an AI employee this way also clarifies accountability and oversight needs: just as a new human hire gets onboarding, access limits, and a probationary review period, an AI employee benefits from staged autonomy, starting with heavy human review and expanding independence as its track record on real tasks builds confidence. This staged rollout matters more for AI employees than for narrow automations because the scope of what they're trusted to decide is much broader.