Thinking through the benefits AI will bring to managers
Summary
AI is reconfiguring the manager’s job from task orchestration to people-centric leadership. As routine work and task coordination are automated or augmented by AI agents, managers will spend far more time coaching, developing and supporting their teams rather than micro-managing day-to-day tasks.
The article argues that this shift creates a major upside: managers can become more human-centred leaders, using AI as a co‑pilot that provides personalised coaching prompts, feedback templates and workflow integrations. Organisations will need to rethink role profiles, hierarchies and skills expectations — especially where technical skill and people skills rarely sit in the same person.
Key Points
- AI will move managers from orchestrators of work to primary coaches and developers of people.
- Managers will manage mixed teams of humans and AI agents, requiring new ways of working and oversight.
- AI can depersonalise and improve feedback delivery, making tough conversations easier and more consistent.
- HR and managerial responsibilities will continue to blur as AI delivers personalised L&D and performance guidance directly in the flow of work.
- Some managerial tasks currently done in HCM systems will be surfaced via prompts in everyday tools (Teams, Slack), reducing admin friction.
- Organisations must rethink skill profiles and possibly redesign hierarchies where technical excellence and people leadership don’t naturally overlap.
- Adopting AI as a managerial co‑pilot can raise managers’ HR-style responsibilities from a small fraction of their role to a dominant focus on people outcomes.
Why should I read this?
If you manage people (or hire those who do), this article is worth five minutes. It explains, in plain terms, how AI will take the boring admin off your plate and shove the real, human stuff — coaching, development, tough feedback — into the spotlight. In short: if you want to keep your job and actually be good at it, you need to know how AI becomes your co‑pilot, not your replacement.
Author note
Punchy takeaway: AI won’t make managers obsolete — it makes them more human. Embrace the tech, sharpen the people skills, and you can lead an AI‑augmented team that does exponentially more. Miss that change and you risk being the manager left behind.