Organisation24 March 2026 · 7 min
AI agents will change middle management more than employees
Much of middle management is coordination. Coordination is exactly what agents are good at.
The public conversation assumes AI arrives at the bottom of the organisation. In practice, the layer most exposed is the one whose primary output is status, routing and summarising.
What is left
What does not automate: judgement under ambiguity, developing people, holding a difficult conversation, taking responsibility for an outcome. That is a real job. It is also a different job than many managers currently do.
The management task
If you introduce agents without redefining what your managers are for, you will get quiet resistance and no productivity. Redefine the role first, deliberately and in public.