Abstract
With recent advancements in multi-agent generative AI (Gen AI), technology organizations like Microsoft are adopting these complex tools, redefining AI agents as active collaborators in complex workflows rather than as passive tools. In this study, we investigated how early adopters and developers conceptualize multi-agent Gen AI tools, focusing on how they understand human-AI collaboration mechanisms, general collaboration dynamics, and transparency in the context of AI tools. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 developers, all early adopters of multi-agent Gen AI technology who work at Microsoft. Our findings revealed that these early adopters conceptualize multi-agent systems as "teams" of specialized role-based and task-based agents, such as assistants or reviewers, structured similar to human collaboration models and ranging from AI-dominant to AI-assisted, user-controlled interactions. We identified key challenges, including error propagation, unpredictable and unprod