The most common refrain we hear about society and the rapid advances in Generative Artificial Intelligence is, “We’re not ready.” We’re not ready for Artificial General Intelligence, and we’re certainly not ready for Artificial Superintelligence. Yet both are approaching uncomfortably quickly.

Business (along with government) is near the top of the list of unprepared entities; in business, managers lead the list of employees who need to get up to speed…fast. It could be as soon as this year that managers will be asked to lead hybrid teams of human employees and AI agents that autonomously perform multiple tasks — emulating what a skilled employee can do sitting at a computer, but much faster and perhaps more accurately. This will need to result in a new approach to managing. In this midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel look at what this means for managers and how far business is from enabling their managers to succeed in this new work reality.

Links from this episode:

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, April 28.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Neville Hobson: Hi everyone, and welcome to four immediate release. This is episode 4 5 8. I’m Neville Hobson.
Shel Holtz: And I’m Shel Holtz.
I read an article in Forbes the other day that pointed out that because of the role AI agents will play in the workplace, we are the last generation to manage a wholly human workforce. Uh, I spend a fair amount of my time communicating.
I. With managers, uh, through a variety of channels where I work. So with all this in mind, let’s take a look at the evolving role of managers in the era of generative AI and how internal communicators can support this transformation Traditionally. Managers have balanced administrative tasks, strategic planning, and people management.
However, recent McKinsey research confirms that less than 30% of a manager’s time is spent on people leadership with the majority consumed by individual execution, uh, or [00:01:00] administrative duties. How is this all going to look in the era of generative ai? Well, that’s what we’ll talk about right after this.
With the integration of generative ai, many routine administrative tasks are being automated, enabling this profound shift that we’re seeing in what managers focus on where they spend their time. This transition transforms managers from day-to-day administrators to strategic orchestrators who can coordinate complex systems.
Involving both human talent and AI tools beyond simply using ai, its co-pilots for their own individual tasks. And it’s worth, uh, noting that that remains important since, uh, there is data that shows that managers spend a heck, a lot of their. Time on, uh, that individual performance, that, that individual contribution, uh, and not on managerial tasks, but beyond doing that, managers are now creating and, and managing [00:02:00] sophisticated workflows where humans and multiple AI systems, this being the agents that we’re hearing so much about, collaborate to achieve outcomes that weren’t possible before.
Uh, this evolution redefines quality and excellence in management, moving beyond supervision to creating environments where both human and AI capabilities can thrive cohesively. While AI handles routine tasks, managers will focus more on the uniquely human aspects of leadership, building the team’s culture, fostering innovation, providing emotional support, and making ethical judgements.[00:03:00]
We’ll look at the new managerial competencies and how communicators can help managers make this transition right after this. Now the shift isn’t without its challenges. Managers need to develop new competencies, including understanding AI capabilities and limitations, interpreting AI generated data for decision making, managing the ethics of AI implementation, fostering collaboration between human and AI team members.
Intelligence to support [00:04:00] teams through technological change. Yet as managers navigate through these changes, internal communicators have a pivotal role to play in facilitating a smooth transition. We do that through education and awareness, demystifying. AI by providing clear, accessible information about what it is, its capabilities, its limitations.
This includes creating informative content, working with the training and IT departments to develop workshops, sharing success stories across the organization. This is a change, so we should be looking at change management support with all the conversation going on about the relevance of change management.
This is a change. It does require some support. Uh, we need to highlight new managerial skills that will evolve as we move into this era. This might involve collaborating with HR to create competency frameworks or sharing resources for skill development. Uh, feedback loops will have to be implemented, channels for [00:05:00] continuous feedback that allow managers and employees to share their experiences.
We can facilitate these mechanisms through call surveys, focus groups, and digital platforms where insights can be collected and acted on. Uh, and storytelling. Finally, obviously, sharing those narratives about how AI integration is positively affecting the organization. That can be really powerful stuff.
Highlighting the stories where AI has taken over mundane tasks, letting managers focus on strategic initiatives and team development that can be really motivating and, and provide some practical insights for others as well. Finally, there’s that issue of ethical considerations, uh, and developing those guidelines because AI will become more integrated into management practices, and we’ll have a role in facilitating discussions about how that should be done ethically, that includes helping develop and communicate guidelines around data privacy, algorithmic bias, and ensuring human oversight.
Remains in critical [00:06:00] decision making processes. So as we continue to explore this intersection of organizational communication and digital technology collaboration between managers and communicators is, is really going to take center stage here sooner rather than later. And as communicators, we can navigate the complexities of this.
AI driven era, we can foster workplaces that leverage technology and value, uh, that irreplaceable human touch that makes organizations really thrive.
Neville Hobson: Okay. Lot to, uh, lot to think about there. Uh, one question I have shell about all of this and, and I’m kind of confirmed in my thinking by looking at, uh, all the articles we’ve assembled that will be in the show notes that are talking about this topping in one way or another, that we talk about the last generation of managers to manage a who holy human workforce.
I, I, I don’t disagree with that at all. It seems very likely, , but. I wonder why there’s this kind of fixation in the mainstream media, the [00:07:00] tech press, and in fact anyone talking about it, that they want a graphic or an illustration to go along with the article. Why is it they always show a robot or some kind of machine that’s human-like sitting, typing at a computer or shaking a hand with a, with a human being?
That’s absolutely not what we’re expected to see. Yeah, it’s a bit of, it’s a metaphor, Neville, it’s a metaphor, it’s a bit of software, but it fixes in people’s minds that your workforce is gonna be robots sitting there. So how do you, , manage that then in the context of, uh, day-to-day. Uh, work in teams that are human beings.
, you have , your Microsoft teams call typically, uh, you’ll have physical meetings. , so where does the AI sit in that context? Where, where’s a scenario where you’ve got your AI colleague. Whether it’s an AI assistant or whatever it might be, , where does it, or are you gonna call it he or a she or a they, whatever, uh, how does that integrate into [00:08:00] the physical workforce that you are managing?
That
Shel Holtz: is the million dollar question. Uh, and I think the answer right now is, which no,
Neville Hobson: no one is asking or even answering actually. Well,
Shel Holtz: yeah, and I think, I think that’s, a couple of these articles start to point to that they, they make the point that if the agents can go out and do things that right now people are doing and they’re doing it using processes that take considerably longer, how do we then integrate?
These so that there are now workflows and processes that accommodate what those agents can do, the timelines that they can do them in. And the problem is we don’t know what those agents are going to do yet. , very, very few are available. The ones that we see from, you know, HubSpot and Salesforce are fairly rudimentary at this point.
, I think we’ll see some. Significant leaps this year. , some really startling stuff, , in 2026. , and then we’ll be able to start to see within [00:09:00] job categories. In the field I work in, , how is it going to. Integrate into the actual project as it’s being built. How does it integrate into pre-construction and estimating?
, and those people who have very longstanding, , well-defined processes and workflows to do that, , it’s all gonna be thrown into the wood chipper, right? Because with these agents doing things in minutes that used to take hours, days, weeks, months, . You’re gonna have to come up with new workflows, and you’re gonna have to figure out exactly what the people do, how they do it, when they do it, to accommodate what’s now available.
And if there are, , consulting practices that will be built on this, there will be trainers who will go out and work with organizations on this. None of them exist yet, because again, we need the agents to see exactly what kind of impact it is and have some practical field experience with this.
Neville Hobson: So it seems to me that we’ve got things around the wrong way in that [00:10:00] case. ’cause all I see are lists of tasks and things that, that the ai, , , the participation of AI in your workforce team is gonna have to do. I. So, , you know, the evolving workplace dynamics, how people do things, and, uh, looking through just some of them, , enterprise applications, customer service, transformation, research and data analysis, software development, cybersecurity, blah, blah, blah.
, okay, fine. That’s great. Identifying the tasks that need doing, but it seems to me that the, maybe the more essential task is somebody has to be talking about how will the AI fit into this, , without. Indeed it probably isn’t a, without, without a whole scale shift and change in how teams actually work, where you’ve got, , you know, your typical team, groups of people reporting to managers.
, it’s not, you know, hierarchical only. It’s, , across cross fertilization of ideas. You name it. , people will get together, they’ll chat on the phone, , they’ll do text message. [00:11:00] They’ll communicate with each other on the fly as a project is developing. , where does the AI fit in there in the sense of, you’ve asked your AI assistant to, , hey, take, , this is what we wanna do.
Go and get that data. Come back to me with, , the top 10 things. You actually probably wouldn’t have to tell it that. Go and analyze that and come back to me and tell me what you that be, what you.
30 seconds later it’s done that, , and , probably 10 seconds after that, there’s your spreadsheet all prepared and wait, hang on a minute, that’s, , way too fast because, , you are not capable of this. And that’s an extreme example. I’m sure it isn’t gonna be like that, but we need to be discussing those things, right?
Right. Now, if this is already on the, , on the horizon for people, and you’ve just mentioned something, I agree with you, within a year. This is gonna be real and not a mass, not widespread, not universal, certainly not. But there’ll be some many businesses doing this already. So, , [00:12:00] I just wonder, , the practicality of this, , the ideals are fantastic and I remember when I was at IBM, this is now nearly 10 years ago, with IBM Watson, talking about the role of.
Tools like Outlook at the time would be autonomous in terms of fixing your appointments. So scheduling this and doing that kind of thing, wonderful. But that’s just one-to-one in a sense. And, and you can’t, , uh, use that, uh, effectively in a group who aren’t, who aren’t ready for this kind of thing. So I, I, I’m just curious.
I think, I suppose really why is no one talking about this? You mentioned some of these articles pointed to this, but no one’s actually discussing it. Certainly not that I’ve seen outside of academia. And so when are we gonna get to that in, in business? What about, uh, the companies that you work for, the ones that I might work for, or the clients that you might engage with?
What’s happening with these guys early days with most
Shel Holtz: companies? . I can tell you , where I work. We have a, an AI committee. I’m [00:13:00] pleased to be on it. You mentioned that, , we have divided into subcommittees , and we have objectives and goals and we’re working on it. But, you know, I don’t think there are many organizations that are routinely using agents now to, no, it’s too soon.
Take over, a routine element of a workflow. , they’re, they’re just not, they haven’t been deployed yet.
Neville Hobson: Hence, , if you talk in your organization, say, Hey guys, this is coming. Okay. We’ve got AI agents coming. They’re gonna be doing all this work that you hate and it’s gonna be wonderful ’cause they’ll give you all the results in this short period of time.
So, are we ready? I. No, we’re not, we’re not ready. Nope. You’re so don’t talk about this stuff yet, then it needs to be the other way around. I think before we get into this for the flow, , so that you can set the right expectations with everyone. , actually I. That’s what I make.
Shel Holtz: Yeah. I mean, the agents are on their way, , , and very, very soon.
, and you’re gonna see them as with HubSpot, , [00:14:00] and Salesforce built into products that you’re already using. , so it’s around the corner that we’re gonna be able to deploy them within the organization. Or organizational tasks that are not part of a branded product. It’s just something that we have built or we have hired somebody to come in and build.
Uh, and it does the thing that we need it to do. , so I do, I think we do need to start thinking about, we don’t wanna be confronted when there are suddenly agents doing things and everybody’s in disarray because the workflows that we have been. Using for the last decade or 30 years or 50 years, depending on your industry, , have , just been thrown to the winds.
It, it doesn’t work based on when deliverables are happening. So, , I don’t it, it doesn’t mean that we need to figure out how to do it now, but we need to let people know it’s coming. Otherwise, it’s just, yeah, I gonna be a chaos and a shock.
Neville Hobson: Yeah, we do. We need to be telling this is what’s coming and this is what we need to do now.
Ready for when it’s coming. But I, I do wonder Shell as [00:15:00] well, , is this perhaps also not a case of, , , how could you, how could I, how’s the best way to describing It’s , of jargon overloads that suddenly there’s this AI agent and everyone’s latched onto this, Hey, the agents are coming. , whereas much of what your AI agent.
Or whatever you have been used to calling it until now that your chat, GPT generator, AI assistant may be, uh, is actually doing a lot of this stuff already, if just not at scale, , in groups where it’s all communicated across a whole team. So, for instance, I’m thinking of a number of case studies that , , I’ve.
Read, over the past year, , one in particular, , from Microsoft talking about, , an advertising agency out in the far east out in Asia who, , had, , a software tool that was based on artificial intelligence that would manage everyone’s tasks and let everyone know the status now and again, automated.
So I see to, I say to myself, think of something like, , Asana. Or one of those tools except fully automated, [00:16:00] and people were getting used to that and seeing great results from it that they recognize as well, that it required them to do certain things differently than they’d done before. But they didn’t see that as a, oh God, I’ve gotta do this and I don’t wanna do it.
They wanted to do it. I’m thinking that’s where we need to be. , and maybe it is a partly a thing, a jargony thing. , it’s called AI agents All sounds cool and blah, blah. , that, it is missing the bit though that we’re talking too much about the, the outcome without understanding how we’re gonna get there.
That’s what seems like to me.
Shel Holtz: I think agent , is definitely jargon, but I think there’s some substance behind it. I mean, remember when we interviewed Aaron Quien from. Profit, , and what he’s doing with AI and press releases. Now, if you take that to the, , agentic level, , imagine that your company has an announcement to make, so you provide all of the details of the announcement to your AI agent, which has been trained on your media space, and it will go, , find all of the reporters who might be [00:17:00] interested in reporting on that.
Draft a press release or press announcement, or a press kit or all of the above, , that each one is tailored to each reporter, , produces three versions and three different tones of voice, , and cues them up for distribution to those reporters and puts everything in a folder for you to go review before you choose the one you’re going to send to each reporter.
It’s just the multiple steps that it takes without intervention, unless it has a question in which case it asks you. Right, right. This is so much different than a chat bot box.
Neville Hobson: Right. I get it. I get it. But it just needs to set the right expectation, I think. Because that is not universe, not mass market yet.
And, and this is part of the trouble with some of these things where , the talk focuses on this is gonna be with us, meaning it’s univers, it’s everywhere. This is what everyone’s gonna be doing. It won’t be like that. I’m sure it won’t be. , it comes in small steps and in iterations, and some will do it and others will see it and they’ll start [00:18:00] doing it.
This is how most things tend to happen. , it’s ideal. It sounds wonderful, but I think it, it’s, to me, the expectation setting is key in that, , we want to get down this road and bring everyone along with us to understand this is what’s coming. This is what we need to do now. So what your company’s doing is a good example of that.
And I’m sure many, many other companies are doing that as well. And some of these examples and these articles, the ones you showed, the ones I dug up to miss that. Actually, , and they’re talking all about, you know, development of frameworks and, , customer service, absolute transformation in the customer experience because of this Well, and that, thank God I say Ben’s better than the current state of customer service, even with menuing, voicemail systems, all that stuff.
So yet it’s not yet. There. , and we need help to understand how real this is, but without people saying, yeah, rubbish, this isn’t gonna happen, because that’s not right either. But it’s a long way off, it seems to me. But the steps need to be taken now, and now I I, I’ll backtrack on what I just said there.
She, because we know that a long way off [00:19:00] means six months. Yes.
Shel Holtz: Yeah. , , this is, , an, an accelerated world that we live in.
Neville Hobson: It
Shel Holtz: is.
Neville Hobson: It’s exciting without any doubt. , I just would hate to see that excitement, , eyes glaze because people don’t see how they’re gonna get there, and that’s the bit that we need to focus on, I think.
Shel Holtz: Yeah. And by the way, you, , wondered how, , we would deal with the AI in the meetings? I, expect it won’t be very long before, it’s just like talking to the computer and Star Trek. it’s just part of the conversation, correct. Representing all of the agents that knows Right. Everything that’s going on, , in that AI space and can answer any of your questions.
And by the way, if, if teams wanna start getting used to this now, one of the things they can do is start using Notebook, lm, , throw , all of the documents for whatever it is you’re working in. There. And then during meetings, just start to query lm. If you have a question about anything, , it can answer based on any document that you have put in that notebook.
So get used to having that conversation with an AI agent. It’s, it’s, yeah, [00:20:00] not, , I mean, it’s available right now and useful and it’s gonna be everywhere sooner or later. Yep. And that will be a 30 for this episode of four immediate release.

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