The Managers AI Will Replace First

Tony Skehan
Mar 9
4 min read

If your leadership style involves mostly meetings, updates and PowerPoint, this may feel uncomfortably familiar.

Most of the people I work with on job related problems are not struggling because they lack ability.

They are struggling because they work in environments that quietly drain it out of them.

Often the issue is not the workload. It is the way the work is organised, communicated and managed. Endless meetings, unclear decisions, vague feedback and a steady stream of messages asking for “updates”.

Over time this creates a strange situation where capable people begin to doubt themselves, not because they are doing anything wrong, but because the system around them is noisy, inefficient and oddly disconnected from how humans actually work.

Recently, while watching the rapid rise of AI tools, I started to notice something interesting.

A lot of what we describe as “management” is really just administrative activity. Moving information around. Rephrasing it. Presenting it again in a slightly different format.

Which raises an awkward question.

If a large portion of management is simply organising information, what happens when machines become extremely good at organising information?

That thought led me to the following observations.

I was a relatively late convert to AI.

For a long time, I ignored it in the same way people ignore new kitchen appliances. You assume it’s probably useful but you suspect it will involve reading instructions and pressing the wrong button.

Now I use it regularly. Not because it is magical, but because it saves time on the sort of things I was never brilliant at anyway. Formatting. Tidying. Summarising. I used AI to make the image for this article (I wasn’t going to but I couldn’t find my crayons).

So what’s not to like?

Well, quite a few people are understandably nervous about it. They worry AI might take their job.

Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. I genuinely don’t know.

But there is one group who might want to start paying a little closer attention.

People whose job title includes “Manager” or “Team Leader.”

Particularly if you don't actually "lead" or "Manage" anyone.

Because if your role mainly consists of the following activities, there is a possibility that a AI might be quietly rehearsing to be your replacement.

Let’s have a look at a few examples.

The Meeting Summariser

Runs a 60-minute meeting to discuss what was said in the previous 60-minute meeting.

At the end everyone nods, nothing changes, and an email arrives shortly afterwards beginning with:

“Just to summarise…”

AI can attend the meeting, summarise it, extract the actions, and probably cancel the next one.

The Spreadsheet Translator

Takes numbers from one spreadsheet and carefully transfers them into a PowerPoint slide so senior leadership can “visualise the data.”

This process normally involves phrases such as:

“Let’s circle back on that metric.”

AI will do the same job in about three seconds and will not need to circle back on anything.

The Buzzword Distributor

Their main skill is replacing perfectly normal words with corporate ones.

Often this functions as a useful smokescreen when there isn’t actually an answer available.

For example:

Problem = Opportunity

Delay = Strategic pause

No idea = We’re exploring options

Unfortunately, AI was largely trained on the internet, which means it already speaks this language fluently.

The Forwarder of Emails

Receives an email.

Forwards it to someone else with the deeply insightful message:

“Thoughts?”

AI can read the email, answer the question, draft a response and remove the middleman entirely.

The Dashboard Admirer

Builds beautiful dashboards full of charts, colours and moving graphs.

Nobody uses them.

However, everyone is told they must review them weekly.

AI will simply analyse the data and tell you the one thing that actually matters.

Which is usually buried somewhere underneath twelve pie charts.

The Status Requester

Sends messages like:

“Just checking where we are with this.”

Five times a week.

AI will simply know where you are with it.

The Strategy Rephraser

Takes someone else’s idea and presents it again using slightly different wording and a new font.

Often accompanied by a Venn diagram.

AI can already do this.

And if we’re honest, it will probably produce better Venn diagrams.

Pastel colours included.

The slightly uncomfortable question

Now ask yourself something slightly different.

Could you have a conversation with a member of your team about something that isn’t work?

I don’t mean the kind of conversation you might have with a stranger on a bus.

(If you live or work in London, that idea alone probably made you uncomfortable.)

I mean a real conversation.

Do you know how they think?

What motivates them?

What they enjoy doing outside work?

Are they married?

Do they have kids?

What team they support?

What their hobbies are?

You don’t need to know their entire life story. But if you are responsible for someone’s performance, it probably helps to understand who they actually are.

Otherwise, you are trying to manage humans using only spreadsheets.

And spreadsheets are not famous for their emotional intelligence.

If your entire leadership style revolves around metrics, dashboards and performance slides, but involves very little coaching, understanding or decision-making, it might be worth thinking about that.

Because software can already handle most of the administrative side of management.

The human side is harder.

The good news

Not every manager needs to panic.

Leaders who:

Remove friction

Make decisions

Protect their teams

Think clearly under pressure

Help people improve

are probably safe.

AI can write the update.