One of the topics that I have been reflecting on during my vacation is what AI-first organizations will look like in the future. Traditional companies are, by and large, based on the military. And, of course, military structures are intended to continue to operate even when slices of people and roles are cut out, as tends to happen in war situations. The organizational structure is resistant to change in the extreme and this is by design. This is exactly what we’re seeing in traditional companies: the resistance to change is enormous and hard to overcome.
With AI becoming increasingly powerful, however, I can see an organizational model emerge where middle managers and other organizational structures are replaced with AI models operating as the coordination mechanism. And we’ll see predominantly individual contributors (ICs) that are partnered with agents, with the traditional C-suite being replaced by a small number of strategists that set the desired behavior and the direction of changes required in the company. The agents will operationalize this and guide the ICs to operate according to the new principles. As a reflection for today: are you preparing yourself for a world without managers and where you will be operating as an IC?