As the status of middle management has declined, its duties have increased.
Their latest project is leveraging AI.
Companies are under increasing pressure to prove that AI is improving efficiency. During several high-profile layoffs this year, CEOs have boasted that AI made them possible.
Most recently, Coinbase announced on Tuesday that it would be cutting 14% of its staff, citing both AI and management cuts.
Business Insider has been writing exclusively in recent weeks about how companies including Disney and JPMorgan are tracking and encouraging their employees’ use of AI. These two companies in particular demonstrate how managers are working to drive adoption every day.
This is a sign that the pressure to demonstrate results from large AI investments is shifting from executive memos and all-hands discussions to individual manager check-ins and, ultimately, performance reviews. Managers in the middle are doing thorough research, flagging underutilization, creating dashboards, and providing actionable ideas for adopting technology.
It’s another challenge for managers already strained under the mandate to do more with less.
“It’s become even more urgent.”
A software engineer at JPMorgan said he has a good relationship with his managers. Lately, their conversations have turned to AI, he told Business Insider.
In daily stand-ups and weekly team meetings, employee managers remind him and his colleagues that now that they have access to AI tools, “we need to start showing better results,” he said, referring to what he’s hearing from managers.
“There’s more urgency,” the engineer said. He added that managers have made comments in meetings about not wanting to be the “bottom team” in using AI.
Companies have spent the past few years deploying AI tools, encouraging employees to experiment with them, and sometimes requiring them to use them. However, many companies face a well-known problem. Giving employees access to AI does not mean they will use it or use it in a way that improves productivity.
consulting McKinsey reported in April that while companies are increasing investment in AI, “the lasting impact on business results is elusive.”
That’s where the manager comes in.
“Managers play a very important role,” said Julie Bedard, managing director at Boston Consulting Group, which focuses on talent strategy and AI.
A year ago, many companies’ approach to AI was “let’s do something,” said Kathy Gersh, CEO of change management firm Kotter.
After rolling out AI to everyone, some leaders “concluded, ‘Well, nothing’s happening,’ or, ‘There’s not enough happening,'” she said. “Now it’s being pushed even further within the organization.”
Expect an email from your boss
One way for managers to convince employees is to make it clear that they are tracking AI usage. Business Insider previously reported that Disney allows some of its technology teams to view an “AI adoption dashboard” that shows token usage for its AI tools Cursor and Claude.
That’s not the only way the company will investigate who is going all-in on AI. One Disney manager wrote to a software engineer saying he was reviewing the team’s use of technology to see “how people are using the AI tools we’ve invested in,” according to a message seen by Business Insider.
The manager wrote that the employee had used an AI tool once in the past 30 days and asked the engineer to explain by a certain date why the employee hadn’t used AI more.
Managers asked for details about which AI tools the person had access to, how they had used them, what made it “difficult to get started,” and what would make it easier for employees to “use them more regularly.”
“Your honest feedback will help us understand where to focus our efforts, whether it’s better training, clearer instruction, or just removing friction,” the managers wrote.
Another engineer at the company described a bottom-up approach where engineers generate ideas. But the instructions from above are clear. “Handwritten codes are prohibited,” this person told Business Insider.
It seems to be working. “I haven’t written any code in months,” the engineer said.
Manager under pressure
The push for AI comes as companies rethink the role of managers. The Great Flattening promoted the abolition of management layers that focused primarily on oversight. This is something Meta’s head Mark Zuckerberg reportedly derided as “admins managing admins.”
Leaders envision a future where managers manage AI, but in the nearer future, managers will manage the people who manage AI. Many early organizations relied on simple tracking measures, such as whether an employee logged into a tool. But these metrics don’t necessarily translate into meaningful productivity gains, BCG’s Bedard said.
Managers are faced with the question, “How do we deploy this tool to do our jobs better, faster, and more effectively?” said Mr. Cotter.
JPMorgan engineers said the push has changed the way they work. He now delegates low-level tasks to AI tools.