'Work Agents' Survey Reframes Agents as Model-Plus-Harness Systems, Maps Five Work Classes and Joint Optimization

The 'Work Agents' paper proposes a work-centric framework that treats agents as systems combining foundation models, runtime harnesses, stateful workspaces and verifiable outcome delivery. It introduces two measurement dimensions — work persistence and work openness — classifies five forms of digital work, defines five core capability families, and compares model, harness and joint optimization strategies against existing evaluation methods.