Everybody’s obsessing over whether or not AI will steal their jobs. They’re asking the flawed query.
Whereas headlines scream about AI changing staff—41% of employers are planning to downsize, half of entry-level jobs are vanishing—they’re lacking the true transformation. The query isn’t who will get changed. It’s what occurs to everybody who stays.
Right here’s the contrarian reality: AI isn’t simply eliminating jobs. It’s eliminating the complete idea of conventional administration. And that could be one of the best factor that might occur to your profession.
The good flattening
Center administration exists primarily for one motive: to be human routers of data. Managers combination knowledge from under, filter it, and move it upward. They take technique from above, translate it, and cascade it downward. They’re basically organizational middleware.
However what occurs when AI can route info immediately, floor insights mechanically, and coordinate work seamlessly? The middleware turns into redundant.
At Fireflies, we’ve confirmed this isn’t only a principle.
We function with minimal hierarchy—particular person contributors earn greater than managers. Our AI captures each dialog, tracks each determination, and ensures nothing falls by means of the cracks. The consequence? A radically flat group the place everybody operates just like the CEO of their area.
Welcome to the mini-CEO period
When info flows freely and AI handles coordination, one thing profound occurs: Each worker positive aspects the context and instruments beforehand reserved for executives.
Image this: A buyer success supervisor (CSM) notices throughout three shopper calls that customers are battling the identical function. As a substitute of scheduling conferences and writing reviews, the CSM queries their AI teammate for sample evaluation throughout all buyer conversations. Inside minutes, knowledge exhibits that 47% of enterprise shoppers point out this friction level. The AI teammate goes on to draft a function enchancment proposal, tag the product crew, and by day’s finish, it’s prioritized for the following dash.
That motion used to require three departments and 5 approval layers. Now it’s one individual with AI amplification making executive-level selections.
Or think about the gross sales rep who makes use of conversational intelligence to trace competitor mentions throughout each gross sales name within the firm. They spot a pricing sample, modify their proposal technique, and shut three offers that will have been misplaced. No gross sales ops crew wanted. No pricing committee. Simply real-time intelligence and autonomous motion.
This isn’t empowerment theater. It’s a elementary reorganization of energy.
Resistance is futile
Conventional organizations will struggle this. They’ll create “AI committees” and “transformation process forces” full of the very center managers whose roles are evaporating. They’ll add layers to handle the know-how that’s alleged to take away layers.
They’ll lose.
As a result of whereas they’re debating governance frameworks, their rivals are unleashing armies of mini-CEOs as a result of every worker is armed with AI teammates that multiply their affect tenfold. Every individual is making selections on the velocity of thought, not the velocity of forms.
It’s your transfer
The selection is stark: Evolve or develop into irrelevant.
If you happen to’re an worker, begin performing like a mini-CEO at this time. Use AI to broaden your scope. Make selections past your pay grade. The outdated guidelines are useless.
If you happen to’re a frontrunner, cease defending hierarchies that know-how has already made out of date. Give your folks AI teammates and radical autonomy. Sure, it’s scary to give up management. However the various—watching rivals transfer at 10 occasions your velocity—is scarier.
The way forward for work isn’t about people versus AI. It’s about people with AI superpowers, working in radically flat organizations the place everybody thinks and acts like an proprietor.
Center administration is useless. Lengthy dwell the mini-CEO.
Krish Ramineni is CEO and cofounder of Fireflies.ai.
