As middle managers’ ranks dwindle, their mandate is increasing.
Their latest project: Getting you on board with AI.
Companies are under increasing pressure to prove that AI is boosting efficiency. During a smattering of high-profile layoffs this year, CEOs have boasted that AI enabled the cuts.
Most recently, Coinbase said Tuesday it was cutting 14% of its staff, citing both AI and a desire to trim management layers.
In recent weeks, Business Insider has exclusively written about how companies, including Disney and JPMorgan, are tracking and incentivizing corporate employees’ AI use. These two companies, in particular, show how managers are working to drive day-to-day adoption.
It’s a sign that the pressure to show results from hefty AI investments is shifting — from C-suite memos and all-hands talking points to individual manager check-ins and, ultimately, performance reviews. Those managers in the middle are digging in, flagging low usage, creating dashboards, and offering up practical ideas for employing the technology.
For managers already straining under do-more-with-less marching orders, it’s one more thing on their plates.
‘It’s become more urgent’
A software engineer at JPMorgan says he has a good relationship with his manager. Lately, their conversations have turned to AI, he told Business Insider.
In daily standups and weekly team meetings, the worker’s manager reminds him and his colleagues that now that they have access to AI tools, “we need to start showing better outcomes,” he said, referring to what he’s hearing from his manager.
“It’s become more urgent,” the engineer said. He added that his manager has made comments in meetings about not wanting to be the “last-place team” in AI use.
Companies have spent the past few years rolling out AI tools, urging employees to experiment and, at times, mandating their use. Yet many firms have run into a familiar problem: Giving workers access to AI doesn’t mean they’ll use it, or do so in ways that boost productivity.
Consulting firm McKinsey reported in April that while companies are investing more in AI, “sustained impact on performance is elusive.”
That’s where managers come in.
“Managers play a really critical role,” said Julie Bedard, a managing director at Boston Consulting Group who focuses on talent strategy and AI.
A year ago, many firms’ AI approach amounted to, “Let’s do something,” said Kathy Gersch, CEO of the change-management firm Kotter.
After rolling out AI to everyone, some leaders concluded, “‘Well, nothing’s happening,’ or, ‘Not enough is happening,'” she said. “Now it’s getting pushed further in the organization.”
Expect an email from your boss
One way bosses are nudging workers is by making it clear they’re tracking AI use. At Disney, the company is letting some on its tech team view an “AI Adoption Dashboard” that shows token use for the AI tools Cursor and Claude, Business Insider previously reported.
It’s not the only way the company is examining who’s going all in on AI. One Disney manager wrote to a software engineer that he’d been reviewing a team’s use of the technology to see “how people are using the AI tools we’ve invested in,” according to a message viewed by Business Insider.
The manager wrote that the person had used the AI tool once in the prior 30 days and asked the engineer to explain, by a certain date, why the worker hadn’t used AI more.
The manager asked for details on which AI tools the person had access to, how they had been using them, what had made it “hard to get started,” and what would make it easier for the worker to “use them more regularly.”
“Your honest feedback will help me understand where to focus — whether that’s better training, clearer guidance, or just removing friction,” the manager wrote.
Another engineer at the company described a bottom-up approach in which engineers generate ideas. Yet the directive from above is clear: “No handwritten code,” this person told Business Insider.
It appears to be working. “I haven’t written any code in months,” the engineer said.
Managers under pressure
The AI push comes as companies are rethinking managers’ roles. The Great Flattening has driven the elimination of layers of management focused primarily on oversight — what Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly derided as “managers managing managers.”
While leaders have floated a future in which managers manage AI, the more immediate future involves managers managing people who manage AI. Early on, many organizations relied on simplistic tracking measures, such as whether employees logged in to a tool. Yet those metrics didn’t necessarily translate into meaningful productivity gains, BCG’s Bedard said.
Managers are facing questions of “How do you roll out this tool to get the work done even better, and faster, and more effectively?” said Kotter.
At JPMorgan, the engineer said this push has changed how he works. He now delegates lower-level tasks to AI tools.
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