AI agents can remove layers of management and transform hierarchical org charts into task-focused work charts. Tasks and throughput become the primary metrics for organizing work. Organizations will orchestrate tasks to route automatically to the optimal human-agent mix rather than routing by reporting lines. Hierarchical upward communication will give way to outward, task-based coordination. Organizations will face decisions about automatic routing, task assignment, agent monitoring, and continual fine-tuning. Workers may bring personal agent stacks to the workplace, granting access to new skills. Meetings, workflows, and operations are likely to change to accommodate agent-enabled task orchestration.
The org chart - those endless boxes and arrows showing who reports to whom - may be headed for the shredder. The rise of AI agents could strip out layers of management and change how companies are run, said Microsoft's AI platform product lead Asha Sharma. The corporate vice president for Microsoft's AI platform said on an episode of "Lenny's Podcast" published Thursday that "the whole kind of organizational construct might start to look different in a few years."
"The org chart starts to become the work chart," Sharma said, adding that "tasks and throughput become more important than they have been before." "You just don't need as many layers," the Microsoft exec said. In other words, when AI agents are embedded across every workflow, companies might orchestrate tasks that automatically route to the right human-agent mix, instead of asking "who reports to whom" at the company.
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