With generative AI making a huge impact in different walks of life, the technology has long been poised to make significant changes to how organizations work. A top Microsoft executive has now predicted that the technology could lead to the end of hierarchies inside companies.
Microsoft’s AI Platform Product Lead Asha Sharma, in an episode of Lenny’s Podcast, said, “I think the whole kind of organizational construct might start to look different in a few years, so I am pretty excited about it.”
“The org chart starts to become the work chart. I think that tasks and throughput become more important than they have been before. I also think that you just don’t need as many layers,” she added.
“I think in the future work will look really different,” Sharma added.
“And I think at the end of the day, when you have a set of capable agents, and people are capable of more things, you’re not going to start to think in hierarchy and communicating upwards and start to figure out, like kind of outward, task-based type of opportunities,” Sharma further stated.
Sharma also noted that employees will be able to expand their skill set by bringing their own “agent stack” to work, similar to how they bring their own devices.
“You can start to have access to a set of skills that you never had before,” she added.
Big Tech and AI:
Most Big Tech companies are developing their own AI agents, though it isn’t clear how this is impacting the workflow at this point.
However, since last year there have been many job cuts at the top tech companies. For instance, reports claimed that the layoffs of around 6,000 employees by Microsoft this year was linked to reducing layers of management.
Meanwhile, a recent CNBC report revealed that Google has eliminated around 35 percent of its managers who were overseeing small teams in order to reduce bureaucracy and drive efficiency within the company.
“We have to be more efficient as we scale up so we don’t solve everything with headcount,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly said at the meeting.
