When AI Joins the Org Chart: What HR Leaders Need to Know

Three senior HR and organizational leaders — Larry, Diane, and Lucien — joined Valence CEO Das for a candid discussion on what it actually means when AI becomes part of your workforce. They covered the evolution of middle management, the entry-level talent pipeline challenge, and why HR has a rare opportunity to lead right now. This session is essential viewing for CHROs, talent leaders, and anyone shaping the future of work.

Speakers

Das Rush — VP orMarketing, Valence. Moderator.

Larry Emond — Convener of global CHRO communities; works with over 45 CHROs across North America annually.

Diane Gherson — Former IBM executive; Harvard Business Review contributor on the future of middle management.

Lucien Alziari — Organizational strategy advisor; expert on the intersection of talent, technology, and work design.

Key Takeaways

• The org chart question is really a work design question. When leaders say "AI is joining the org chart," what they're really asking is how work gets organized and who — or what — does it. CHROs who own that conversation will lead their organizations through the transition.
• Middle management is being fundamentally redefined. The traditional manager who coordinated work, coached people, and relayed messages is being split apart by AI. Fewer managers will be needed, but those who remain will focus more on human development, framing change, and navigating conflict — roles that AI cannot replace.
• The entry-level talent pipeline is the most urgent HR challenge today. AI is displacing entry-level roles faster than organizations are designing alternatives. HR leaders need to proactively architect pathways for new talent — not wait to see what the technology dictates.
• AI-first mindset separates the leaders from the laggards. The organizations getting the most out of AI are those where talent and HR leaders experiment relentlessly — testing tools, building personal fluency, and creating cultures of curiosity. Personal engagement with AI tools like Nadia is not optional for HR leaders.
• AI coaching extends what HR has always wanted to do. Giving every employee a personalized coach or work assistant was once unaffordable. AI makes it possible at scale — not as a replacement for human connection, but as a new capability layer that amplifies HR's reach and impact.
• Human skills — curiosity, critical thinking, creativity — are the durable advantage. As technical skills become commoditized and their half-life shortens, the uniquely human capabilities are what will make organizations competitively distinct. That is what HR and AI coaching should be developing.

What Does It Mean for AI to Join the Org Chart?

AI joining the org chart means rethinking how work is organized, not just which tasks are automated. The org chart reflects how an organization structures itself to get work done. As AI agents take on defined roles — often with names and identities — HR leaders must decide how to integrate them in ways that keep humans at the center, rather than organizing work around the machines as in the industrial era.

Das: Thank you so much for joining today, Larry, Diane, Lucien. We've had a lot of conversations about various topics. And this might be one of the biggest ones at the moment, which is, AI is joining the org chart in 2025. Maybe it already has for a lot of organizations. I wanted to start there — what does it actually mean for you when you hear somebody say, "AI is joining the org chart?"

Larry: My central work is bringing CHROs around the world together in meetings. I had three meetings in May — Denver, New York, and Boston — with about 45 CHROs total. In all three of those meetings, of course, we spent time on AI and HR. And in all three, we ended talking about what is the future of this thing and what are we going to call the function? Because the term "human resources," or even "people," is already antiquated. CHROs have fully embraced the idea that AI agents are already becoming parts of their workforce. Most of them are personified with names like Nadia, and they're becoming part of the team.

Diane: When I was at IBM, we had agents. We gave them names, but we weren't receiving emails from them. Now we're receiving emails from them — they're becoming more personified. But I think at the end of the day, there is a need for us to think about how to fit them into how work gets done. We haven't really thought through, when it's on the org chart, what that means. We don't have to be back in the industrial era where you organize work around the machines. If you put the human at the center, then maybe the org chart would look very different.

Das: And Lucien, I want to get you in because this leads really well into something you presciently said at our last summit in November — that CHROs are going to become chief work officers because AI is this new way that work is getting done. For HR leaders, it's about how work, technology, and talent come together. How should CHROs be thinking about the work right now?

Lucien: The most encouraging thing is that, even over the last few months, the notion of the work is becoming much more mainstream in the discussion. Catchphrases like "there's an AI agent on the org chart" are fine. But an org chart is basically how work gets done in an organization — how it organizes itself to do the work. The future, in my view, is an optimization game, which we can manage dynamically between the people and talent we have, and the capabilities that technology can bring. Many of those capabilities are now real — scalable, with us. The still-open question is: who's taking control of the work? And if HR doesn't own that space, someone else will.

How Organizations Are Changing as AI Scales

As AI takes on coordination and information-routing tasks, organizations are flattening. Expect fewer management layers, larger spans of control, and a sharp shift in what managers are actually for. The manager of the future spends less time managing work and more time developing people, communicating context, and navigating change — human capabilities that AI amplifies but cannot replace.

Das: How is organizational architecture changing as AI comes on?

Lucien: There's been a trend toward minimizing organizational layers — it drives speed and adaptability — and I think AI supercharges that. There will be fewer layers in organizations. There's going to be a big rethink about the role of managers as we get much more granular in understanding how work gets done. Some of that work is going to be managed with heavy technology use. The old model of the middle manager who managed the work, coached the people, and communicated messages for the organization — that trio is going to get rethought. Fewer layers, fewer managers, probably bigger spans of control, but more focused on development and communication than on managing the work.

Diane: I actually authored an article in the Harvard Business Review this month on middle management. The old game was to reduce headcount and outsource — that was an industrialization game. The new game has so many more possibilities. Work does not have to be fixed into fixed jobs. We're looking for much more fluidity. Maybe more variation in the kind of work that you do, maybe it's your skills that matter more than your job. Having those kinds of conversations — that's what we expect of middle managers now. They don't have to do the coordination work and the passing along of messages. You can go to a town hall and directly talk to your CEO from whatever country you're in. Things have changed dramatically for what middle managers do. There will be fewer of them, but their jobs will become actually more important.

Lucien: Many of these discussions are very reminiscent of when the internet came. Think about how the internet changed the world — a lot of jobs went away, and a lot of jobs were created. At a macro level, I'm actually quite optimistic. If you're caught in the transition, it can get very challenging. But that's why organizations need to be helping employees and potential employees adapt. The adaptation isn't going to be deep technical skills because the half-life of any deep technical skill is getting shorter. Human skills are going to sustain. I would always encourage CHROs to go back and ask: what really matters in this debate? There is no playbook at the moment. And to me, that's really exciting.

What the Best Organizations Are Doing to Drive AI Adoption

The organizations leading on AI adoption share a common trait: an AI-first mindset at the talent and HR leadership level. Their leaders experiment relentlessly, engage personally with AI tools, and create cultures of crowdsourcing and co-creation. Rather than deploying AI as a top-down program, they use it to give employees genuine agency — making it something people participate in, not something done to them.

Das: What are the best organizations doing, especially around driving adoption?

Larry: The ones leaning in the best are those where the head of talent has an almost AI-first mindset. You're testing every possible tool — you try Nadia, you try others, you mess with things, you program yourself in ChatGPT or Copilot. You're technology-first, AI-first. Those are the companies that have gotten way out ahead. I know a woman my firm placed as head of talent who does a little session at CHRO meetings on the experiments she's been running. Every time she does it, the reaction is: "I need that person as my head of talent. That's the future." The COEs with an AI-first mindset are just going to get way out ahead of everybody else.

Diane: It starts at the top, but it also starts at the bottom. You need a culture of experimentation — saying to people, "We want your ideas." I've seen companies do a great job crowdsourcing: "What's the best use of AI for us?" The other thing is that the more HR uses AI to give people agency, the more people understand that it's a really good thing. In the old days, HR used to do things out of being experts — here's the program, we'll roll it out, do change management. Now we can co-create with our people using AI. Even with 100,000 employees, you can get all of their responses, summarize the pros and cons with AI in minutes. People can see different points of view, respond to a poll. Suddenly AI is a force for good — for people having a sense of agency. It's not something being done to them. It's something they're part of.

Lucien: Some of the focus is on which jobs AI is going to replace — it's an efficiency thing, a productivity play. We're business leaders; we can't deny those possibilities. But the most interesting question is: what can we now do that we always wanted to do but never could? Imagine five years ago if we'd said, "Let's give everybody in the organization a coach." Or: "Let's give everyone a work assistant." We'd have said, brilliant idea, but we can't afford it. Now we can do both. And those are just the first thoughts we've had.

The Entry-Level Talent Pipeline: HR's Most Urgent Challenge

AI is eliminating entry-level roles faster than organizations are creating alternatives. Junior legal work, financial analysis, and HR coordination tasks are being absorbed by AI agents. HR leaders must proactively design structured entry points — deciding how many people to bring in, what development they'll receive, and what role AI will play — rather than defaulting to whatever the technology permits.

Larry: One of the big challenges ahead is how we are going to develop senior people. Law firms are openly saying they'll need far fewer junior lawyers because AI agents will handle discovery and research. The question is: how do you develop senior lawyers without that rung? That's going to be true across finance, across HR. Fascinating challenges — and opportunities — but also real ones.

Diane: The loss of the entry-level rung on the ladder is probably the first, most important question for HR leaders to be thinking about because it's real and it's here today. We have to ask ourselves: is it okay that a whole generation of people graduates from university with no access to entry-level roles because they're being taken over by AI? What does that mean for our talent pipeline? That is something we can design into our organizations. We don't have to be victims of this. We can say: this is how we want it to work. We're going to have an intake of this many people, this kind of training, these kinds of hands-on roles, and this will be the role of AI. I'm not seeing enough HR people saying, "I'll take that one on."

Lucien: If you just take what AI does — taking industry-standard outputs — you're not building anything competitively advantaged. I'm still quite optimistic about the combination of humans and technology because the B-minus AI answer that applies across the board is not going to make your business win competitively. It comes back to the creativity, critical thinking, and curiosity of humans to ask the right questions, pose the right problems. The technology is there to help solve it. But the technology is not going to help your company figure out how to win versus others. That's still the human piece.

AI Coaching and the Evolving Role of Managers

The manager's role has been fundamentally reshaped by remote work, generational shifts, and now AI. Today's managers need empathy, conflict resolution, and the ability to develop people across distributed environments. AI coaching — tools like Nadia — directly addresses this gap by giving managers personalized, on-demand support that helps them build the collaborative leadership skills their teams need. This is AI augmenting human leadership, not replacing it.

Das: What are you seeing with AI coaching and its role in helping organizations both support entry-level talent and get back to driving meaningful business impact?

Diane: The role of managers changed dramatically with the pandemic, and also with the generations coming into the workplace. Managers now need empathy. They need to understand the whole person. They're dealing with people working both remotely and on-site — without the same ability to pick up on things. They need to resolve conflict in different ways. So managers need AI coaching to help develop a collaborative work environment. I was very concerned during the pandemic because so many managers were falling apart, burned out, unable to do it. People didn't want to be managers. What you've got now is a different situation because you're enabling them in a very new way.

Lucien: I think what Nadia can do — the whole field of AI coaching — is really exciting. It started on the development side, and that's the right place for it to start. But over time, it's going to be about coaching high performance, not just coaching as an end in itself. It will expand into the management of work, the management of performance — all of those areas that have always been the work of HR. This is a great new capability to make that work even more effective.

What HR Leaders Should Do in the Next 12 Months

The single most important action for HR leaders right now is personal engagement with AI. That means using AI coaching tools yourself, staying current on research, and stepping into the thought leadership vacuum — because no one else in the organization has claimed ownership of this space yet. The CHROs who thrive will combine intellectual curiosity, business focus, and an outside-in perspective to help their organizations lead, not just react.

Das: Bottom-line advice — what should HR leaders not lose sight of in the next 6 to 12 months?

Larry: You have to take the time to meet these agents yourself. You have to spend time with them. I've had Nadia as a guest in many CHRO meetings — we always do it as the last thing of the day. Imagine you're a frontline manager in your company. What would you ask? When they engage with her, I'm always shocked how many say, "You're kidding me." Well, that's on you for not having already taken time to see what's possible.

Diane: I would double down on Larry's point — get your hands dirty, because it's really important to be on top of the technology. I'd add that there are some excellent newsletters and Substacks in the HR AI space. David Green's work in the talent space is exceptional. If anyone isn't reading it monthly, they should be — it goes quite broad across the research on AI's impact on work and people. Staying on top of what's happening in AI and HR needs to be a part of every HR leader's day.

Lucien: Think about what really makes the best CHROs the best. Three things come to mind. One, intellectual curiosity — they get to the underlying cause of issues. Two, a passion for the business and how they can bring all available capabilities to help it succeed. Three, an outside-in perspective that keeps their organization in the right context and avoids wishful thinking.

Nobody else in the organization owns this right now. That's an opportunity to show thought leadership — to ask: what's the potential of these new capabilities? Your job is not to deploy technology. Your job is to help the business win. The path to doing that is a granular understanding of the work and how it gets done with people and technology together. No one has a playbook. Think about it, and then lead on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean for AI to join the org chart?

AI joining the org chart means AI agents are taking on defined roles within an organization — handling tasks previously done by people, often with names and identities of their own. More importantly, it forces organizations to rethink how work is structured and who is responsible for designing that structure. HR leaders are best positioned to own that conversation.

How is AI changing the role of middle managers?

Middle managers historically managed work, coached people, and relayed organizational messages. AI is taking on the coordination and communication-routing elements of that role, making those managers less necessary for task oversight. The managers who remain will focus more on human development, conflict resolution, framing change, and building collaborative culture — skills that require empathy and judgment that AI supports but cannot replace.

What is AI coaching for managers?

AI coaching for managers provides personalized, on-demand coaching support to help managers develop leadership skills like empathy, communication, and team development. Tools like Nadia (Valence's AI coach) allow managers to get coaching whenever they need it — including in real-time, high-pressure moments — without the cost or scheduling constraints of traditional coaching programs. AI coaching augments human leadership rather than replacing it.

How can HR leaders drive AI adoption in their organizations?

The most effective approach is creating a culture of experimentation from both the top and the bottom. HR leaders should engage personally with AI tools, crowdsource ideas from employees about the best uses of AI, and co-create solutions rather than rolling out programs. When employees experience AI as something that gives them agency, adoption follows naturally.

What should HR leaders prioritize as AI replaces entry-level roles?

HR leaders need to proactively design structured talent pathways rather than reacting to what AI makes possible. That means defining how many people to bring in at entry level, what development they'll receive, and what role AI agents will play alongside them. Organizations that design this intentionally will build stronger talent pipelines than those that let technology dictate the outcome.

Will AI replace human workers?

AI will replace some tasks and some roles, particularly those focused on coordination, information routing, and structured analytical work. But the panelists are broadly optimistic: human skills — curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, empathy — are durable advantages that technology does not replicate. Organizations that pair human judgment with AI capabilities, rather than using AI to simply cut costs, will be the ones that compete and win.

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