AI is set to radically change how work gets done at all manner of companies, but it might still retain one of the vestiges of the pre-AI era — management.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says that management isn’t going away anytime soon, and even AI agents would need to be managed. “In a theoretical world, there would be no management,” he said on a podcast. “Like you could theoretically work with everyone doing the work, but of course that’s not possible. People need direction, they need alignment, and you’re not an expert in every specialty of what everyone’s doing, and you have limited time. So you create this like management layer and management is necessary,” he added.
Chesky conceded that the nature of management could change with the advent of AI, but he stressed that it would be needed. “Maybe one day, one person can manage a thousand bots. (But) I think even in that structure, they’ll need a management structure. I even think that you’re not going to be able to track a thousand bots. You’re still going to have a management structure, even if you’re thinking you’re managing AI,” he said.
Chesky’s perspective highlights a crucial shift in the future of work, moving the emphasis from execution to orchestration. As AI agents become increasingly proficient at performing specific, highly skilled tasks—be it writing code, analyzing data, or designing graphics—the value of possessing those raw skills in isolation may diminish. If an AI can perform a task faster, more accurately, and at a fraction of the cost, the human specialist who only knows how to do that task is in a precarious position. The real competitive advantage, therefore, will lie not in the “doing” but in the “directing.” It’s about having the vision to know what needs to be done, why it’s important, and how different AI agents’ outputs should be integrated to achieve a larger strategic goal. Scale CEO Alexandr Wang has gone as far as to suggest that in the future, everyone will eventually become a manager of AIs.
This is precisely why capable managers could remain indispensable. While AI can optimize a process, it lacks the uniquely human abilities of true leadership: setting a vision, understanding nuanced market context, navigating ambiguity, and inspiring action toward a common purpose. A manager’s role will evolve from overseeing people’s tasks to orchestrating a portfolio of human and AI capabilities. They will be the conductors of a complex orchestra of bots, ensuring harmony, resolving conflicts between different AI outputs, and holding ultimate accountability for the final outcome. In a world where anyone can access powerful AI tools, the ultimate differentiator will be the quality of human judgment and strategic oversight that guides them.