ClickUp CEO Requires Employees to Consult AI Agents Before Reaching Him

ClickUp CEO Zeb Evans implemented a policy earlier this year requiring employees to consult AI agents before contacting him directly. The company has deployed approximately 3,000 internal AI agents across workflows, creating a 3:1 ratio of agents to its 1,300 employees.

Employees now direct agents to plan and execute tasks while reviewing the results. Evans stated that the biggest shift is from actually doing and waiting on the work, to reviewing the work and ensuring that it meets your standards.

Young, ClickUp’s principal of demand marketing, created an agent named Wall-E to coordinate webinars. The agent now handles scheduling and execution, allowing her to increase the program from one webinar per month to six. Evans no longer checks email, company chat threads, or project dashboards.

An agent scans these sources, formats essential information like a newspaper, and delivers it to him through chat.

Evans said agents cannot delete anything or merge code to production. The company maintains an agent org chart listing each agent by name and its human owner, who is responsible for ensuring the agent functions as intended. ClickUp has issued monthly performance awards that include equity grants since 2022, averaging around five per month.

In the past year, criteria shifted to prioritize employees who leverage AI to drive outsize business outcomes. According to KPMG’s Q1 2026 Global AI Pulse report, 22% of businesses are exploring agents and 14% are deploying them, while only 9% say they are orchestrating multiple AI agents across workflows.