Virtual offices for AI agents: two different ideas
A plain guide to what people mean by a virtual office for AI agents, and how to tell which kind you need.
What is a virtual office for AI agents?
A virtual office for AI agents is a shared digital space where AI agents and the people who direct them work in one place. The phrase covers two different ideas: an office built for a human team that AI agents join, and an office built around AI agents, led by a person who sets direction and makes the calls.
Both ideas are useful. This guide explains each one, sets them side by side, and offers a few questions to help you decide which fits the way you work.
A note on where we stand: Plenarly is being built as the operating system for AI-run companies, which falls under the second idea. We've tried to describe both fairly, and we don't compare products here.
Why is the term confusing?
The term is confusing because "virtual office" had two meanings before AI agents arrived: a business address service, and software where remote teams work together. This guide sets the address meaning aside and covers the two ideas that involve AI agents.
- A set of business services. For decades, a virtual office meant a business address, mail handling, a phone line and meeting rooms on demand, without leasing a full office.
- Software for remote teams. More recently, the phrase has also come to mean online spaces where remote employees gather and work together. A 2021 study in PLOS ONE, for example, describes organizations moving to "virtual office platforms" during the COVID-19 pandemic.
AI agents add a third layer. An AI agent is software that can plan and carry out a task with some independence. Anthropic's engineering team describes agents as systems where a language model directs its own process and tool use, "maintaining control over how they accomplish tasks." Once people ran several agents at once, they wanted a place for that work.
What is an office for people that AI agents join?
It's an online office that belongs to a human team. People meet and collaborate there, and AI agents join as helpers, taking notes, answering questions or picking up tasks, much as a new colleague would. Leadership works the way it does in any team.
It suits teams of people, often remote, who want their AI tools close to their meetings and shared spaces. If people do most of the work in your company and agents help them, this is probably the idea you're looking for.
What is an office built around AI agents?
An office built around AI agents is organized around the agents' work rather than a human team's meetings. AI agents carry out most of the work, the office exists to organize it, and a person is still in charge. It usually takes one of two angles: one for developers, one for founders.
The developer angle: seeing agents at work
Some agent offices are designed mainly for people who build with agents, especially coding agents. They show each agent as a character or a desk in a visual room, sometimes in a pixel-art or 3D style, so you can watch activity as it happens. Some are open-source projects you run on your own machine, alongside the agents you already use.
They suit developers and technical builders who run several agents and want a live, visual layer on top of them.
The founder angle: leading the whole company
Other agent offices are aimed at founders, builders and small teams, technical or not, who run AI agents across a whole business. Here the office works more like a headquarters. Instead of each agent's activity, it shows the company as a whole: its goals, its projects, the work inside them, and the decisions that need a person. It's for organizing your thinking, choosing where to focus and leading a vision, with the person at the top making the calls agents shouldn't make on their own.
Your agents can usually tell you what they're working on whenever you ask. The value of a headquarters isn't another status report. It's having the whole company laid out in one place, so you can see how the pieces fit and lead from there. For the habits behind it, see our guide on how to run a one-person company with AI agents.
How do the two ideas compare?
The two ideas differ in what the office is built around. An office for people centers on a human team, with agents as helpers. An office built around agents centers on the agents' work, seen either agent by agent (the developer angle) or as a whole company led by one person (the founder angle).
| Office for people that agents join | Office built around agents: developer angle | Office built around agents: founder angle | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built around | A human team | Individual agents and their activity | The company as a whole |
| Main question it answers | "How do we work together, with AI helping?" | "What is each agent doing right now?" | "Where is the company going, and what needs me?" |
| Typical user | Remote and hybrid teams | Developers running several agents | Founders and small teams running AI agents on real work |
| What the "office" stands for | A shared place for people | A live picture of agent activity | A headquarters for the company |
| Role of the person | Team member among team members | Builder and operator | Leader who sets direction and makes the calls |
This table compares categories, not products. Individual tools vary, and some mix elements of more than one.
Which one do you need?
It depends on who does most of the work and what you want to see. If people do most of it, an office for people fits. If agents do, look at offices built around agents: the developer angle to follow each agent, the founder angle to see and lead the whole company.
- Who does most of the work? If people do, start with an office for people. If agents do, look at offices built around agents.
- What do you want to look at? To follow agents as they work, the developer angle fits. To see the company as a whole and lead it, the founder angle fits.
- How technical is your setup? Some agent offices expect you to install and run them yourself. Others aim to be usable without that.
- Do your agents come from more than one lab? If so, check whether a tool is built for one family of agents or a mix.
- Where do decisions live? Look for a place that keeps the calls that belong to you clear and close to the work.
For habits that help whatever tool you use, see our checklist on how to keep track of an AI agent team.
Where does Plenarly fit?
Plenarly is being built as the operating system for AI-run companies: one place where founders and small teams connect their AI agents from any lab, approve their work, and manage the apps those agents build. Early-access sign-ups are open.
It sits in the founder angle. The plan is an office-style view of the whole company, organized by projects and the tasks inside them, with AI agents from different labs side by side and the decisions that need you kept in view. For plain facts, see What Plenarly is and isn't.
Frequently asked questions
What is a virtual office for AI agents?
A virtual office for AI agents is a shared digital space where AI agents and the people who direct them work in one place. Some are offices for human teams that agents join. Others are built around the agents themselves, either to show agent activity or to help a founder lead a company run with AI agents.
Is a virtual office for AI agents the same as a virtual office address?
No. A virtual office address is a business service: a mailing address, mail handling and sometimes meeting rooms, without a leased office. A virtual office for AI agents is software, a digital space where agents' work is organized and where people direct it. The two share a name and nothing else.
Do AI agents need a virtual office?
Not always. If you run one or two agents on small tasks, a chat window and a shared folder may be enough. As you add agents and spread them across a business, a single place to organize the work, set priorities and keep decisions clear becomes more useful, especially when the agents come from different providers.
Can my agents already tell me what they're doing?
Usually, yes. Most agents can report their status when you ask. A virtual office built around agents isn't mainly about getting updates. It's about seeing the whole picture at once, so you can organize your thinking, choose where to focus and lead the work in the direction you want.
What's the difference between an AI agent dashboard and a virtual office for AI agents?
A dashboard usually lists work and status: who's on what, what's done, what's stuck. A virtual office for AI agents adds a sense of place, a spatial view of the company or the agents that makes the structure easier to grasp. Many tools combine both. Our guide to what an AI agent dashboard should show covers the dashboard side.
Is Plenarly available now?
Not yet. Plenarly is in development and isn't released, but early-access sign-ups are open. It's planned as the operating system for AI-run companies: one place where founders and small teams connect their AI agents from any lab, approve their work, and manage the apps those agents build. It's planned with an office-style view of the whole company. Join early access if you already run AI agents on real work.
Sources
- Anthropic, "Building effective agents," December 19, 2024. Definition of agents as systems where models "dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage, maintaining control over how they accomplish tasks." https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents
- Rathnaweera, D. and Jayathilaka, R., "In employees' favour or not?—The impact of virtual office platform on the work-life balances," PLOS ONE 16(11): e0260220, November 19, 2021. Describes organizations moving to "virtual office platforms" during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260220