# Companies are charging ahead with AI—even though middle managers are not ready for it > Source: > Published: 2026-08-13 19:00:00+00:00 As Joelle Emerson has watched companies cull the ranks of middle management and pour resources into [AI](https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence), there has been one key question on her mind: What role is the chief people officer playing in that shift? “I think chief people officers should be leaders in the transformation [that] organizations are undergoing right now with AI,” says Emerson, the cofounder and CEO of culture and inclusion platform Paradigm. “I see a lot of companies making a lot of changes very, very quickly—for example, collapsing management layers.” “It makes me wonder where the chief people officer is in some of those conversations,” she continues. “It seems likely to me that those organizations, or at least some of them, are going to struggle with actually getting people to change in the ways that are required right now.” In a new survey of HR leaders from over 650 companies, Paradigm sought to better understand how companies are evolving and where they might be getting in their own way, in part because they are not fully empowering leaders who oversee people and culture functions. Paradigm’s analysis found that across a breadth of industries—be it tech, financial services, retail, or healthcare—employers are confronting some of the same challenges. Over half of the companies said ramping up AI adoption was a core priority, while 75% of them cited operational efficiency. But many employers appear to be falling short of those aspirations. According to Paradigm’s report, companies have limited faith in their managers even as they trim head count and expect them to do more with less. When asked whether their managers are ready to lead through change, only a fraction of HR leaders said their managers were adequately prepared; three-quarters of respondents said their managers were either unprepared or only prepared in some functions. While many companies were taking steps to train their managers, providing coaching and other resources, they were not necessarily addressing a broader issue—that managers simply had too much on their plate. “I think no matter what organization you’re in or what your philosophy is on the future of org structure, what is definitely true is that companies are asking managers to do more than ever,” Emerson says. As *Fast Company* [has reported](https://www.fastcompany.com/91531056/the-middle-managers-ai-survival-guide), middle managers are taking on more and more as their employers demand broader AI adoption. That can mean overseeing more direct reports, being responsible for them adopting AI, or reviewing the output as employees produce work more quickly with AI. Emerson points out that there could be an opportunity here for corporate leaders—namely chief people officers—to message AI adoption differently, framing it as a way for managers to focus on the more human aspects of their job. “Almost everything we found in [this study] is sort of validating this concern I have that there’s so much exciting opportunity, but we’re not seeing it fulfilled,” Emerson says. “I think the HR function has so much potential right now to flip that and say we’re going to be empowering managers; we’re going to be telling a different story.” Another trend the study highlights is that there’s a significant gap between what companies want to achieve with artificial intelligence and how successfully they are implementing it. Over a third of the leaders polled by Paradigm admitted AI was largely used in a more experimental way, while 38% claimed it was only implemented in certain workflows. At a number of companies, the results of AI pilots and experimentation were not shared across the entire organization. “I actually think there’s a lot of good that comes from letting people experiment with tools and figure out what works,” Emerson says. “It is pretty useless if you have everyone doing that in isolation and not sharing with one another what they’re learning.” The report captures a paradox that Emerson believes is standing in the way of companies truly reaping the benefits of AI adoption: Over 30% of the companies surveyed, for example, had not employed AI for HR functions—even as chief people officers and other HR leaders are being tasked with leading organizations through this moment. In fact, only a third of leaders said they were very confident their company could radically change how work gets done by using AI, beyond simply giving employees new tools to use. Paradigm’s findings suggest that even HR leaders are somewhat skeptical about what their company can actually accomplish with AI. But Emerson claims there is hope if employers enable them to take the lead and bring them into strategy discussions, rather than [overlooking leaders](https://www.fastcompany.com/91450044/corporations-say-they-prioritize-people-so-why-do-so-few-chief-people-officers-become-ceos) who oversee people and culture. “Chief people officers have always been advocating for their seat at the strategy table,” Emerson says. “We’re in a phase of transformation now that is more significantly about human behavior. And if you realize that’s the case, fundamentally you have to have someone in the driver’s seat who knows about those things.”