AI will evolve into an organizational strategy for everyone

Since the invention of the organizational chart in the 1850s, company structures have changed very little – they are hierarchical and consist of many layers of managers and decision-makers. It is because we have been bound by the limits of human intelligence and attention to manage and control the flow of work. AI can change this. In the large language models (LLMs), we have a new form of foreign intelligence, but one that has worked mainly as an assistant at the individual level. In 2025, we will start to see the first organizations to build around the combination of humans and AI working together.

This change represents a fundamental shift in the way we structure and operate our businesses and institutions. While the integration of AI into our daily lives has happened very quickly (AI assistants are some of the fastest product adopters in history), so far, organizations have seen limited benefits. But the coming year will mark a tipping point where AI moves from being a tool for individual productivity to a core component of organizational design and strategy.

In 2025, forward-thinking companies will begin to reimagine their organizational structure, processes and entire culture around the symbiotic relationship between human and artificial intelligence. It’s not just about automating tasks or augmenting human capabilities; it’s about creating entirely new ways of working that leverage the unique strengths of humans and AI. The key to unlocking the true power of LLMs is to move beyond individual use cases to organizational-level integration. While we’ve seen impressive results from individuals using AI assistants for tasks like writing, coding and analysis, the real transformation comes when entire organizations are built around human-AI collaboration.

Startups are leading the charge. The venture capitalists represent a growing trend of portfolio companies promising to keep lean teams of no more than about 30 people, relying on AI to scale their operations without the traditional overhead. However, the benefits of this approach can be even more significant for large and established organizations. These companies have the potential to use AI to cut through inefficiencies, unlock new growth from existing talent, and harness the collective intelligence of their workforce in ways never before possible.

In 2025, we will see a rise in “native AI” startups that build their entire operating model around human-AI collaboration from day one. These companies will be characterized by small highly skilled human teams working in concert with sophisticated AI systems to achieve results that rival those of much larger traditional organizations.

For larger companies, the journey to becoming an AI-embedded organization will be more complex but potentially more rewarding. These organizations must undertake significant research and development efforts to understand how AI can best be leveraged in their specific context. This process will reveal an important truth: Since AI works less like traditional software, and more like a person (even if it is not one), there is no reason to assume that the IT department has the best AI prompters or any particular insight into the most effective uses of AI in the organization.

Thus, while IT will certainly play a crucial role in the implementation and maintenance of AI systems, the actual use cases and innovations come from workers and managers in all departments who discover opportunities to use AI to enhance their work performance. In fact, for large companies, the source of any real advantage in AI will come from the expertise of their employees, which is necessary to unlock the latent knowledge and capabilities in AI systems. This realization will lead to a democratization of the use of AI in some organizations, and those will be the ones driving the transformation to come.

The organizational structures that emerge from this integration of artificial intelligence will be remarkably different from the traditional hierarchies we are used to. We can see the rise of more fluid, project-based structures where teams form and dissolve quickly around specific goals, with AI systems acting as connectors and facilitators. Middle management roles may evolve to focus more on human-AI coordination rather than traditional supervisory tasks. In 2025, the most successful companies will not be those with the most advanced AI technologies, but those that can most effectively combine human and artificial intelligence to create new forms of value.