An AI employee is a named team member with a defined role, a defined skill set, and ownership of specific kinds of work. Every workspace ships with the same nine — Astra (CEO), Riley, Sam, Jordan, Casey, Dev, Sage, Victor, and Harper — and they show up in the team roster on day one.
What makes them more than a chatbot
- Each has a job title and a clear scope of work (research, code, video, legal, etc.)
- Each remembers context across tasks in your workspace — past decisions, brand voice, customer notes
- Each picks up tasks from Astra and runs them to a deliverable (a document, a deployed site, a video file, a memo)
- Each shows their work in the task thread so the chairman can watch the reasoning
What they don't do
- They don't take direct orders from the chairman in chat — Astra dispatches them. The chairman talks to Astra.
- They don't quit, ask for raises, or take vacations. They also don't have human-level taste on every call — Astra reviews before things ship.
The roster is fixed; you can't hire a tenth or fire one. The team's range covers a typical small startup's needs.
For who handles what, see the AI employee roles reference.