I'm certainly not talking about a full replacement of staff with agents. I know there is a lot of doom surrounding that in the market, however, as we all know deep down, with the trajectory agentic AI is on, jobs will be replaced with agents, but new jobs will be created from it. And I'm already starting to see glimpses of what the next gen org structure is going to look like. And it is absorbing.

Every organization will need a strategy arm, teams for exception handling and decision-making, and departments that provide human interaction. But I think we can all agree that there are also going to be times where it's a no-brainer to replace a role with agents if the agent is going to be faster, cheaper, and better, and removing the human element is going to have zero to minimal impact on.

The Competitive Edge Problem

And let's face it, for a business to win, you need to have competitive edge wherever possible. To build a competitive edge, you need to be operationally efficient so things are done quicker and cheaper internally, freeing you up to deploy resources on the more strategic-based processes. When businesses have siloed processes, empire-building departments, and the longest route possible for internal communication, I've seen this over and over again, it's the root cause of stagnation and even negative growth.

Unfortunately, humans have the tendency of taking too much ownership and at times, becoming empire builders. We don't get that level of bias with agents, and some strategic companies are certainly seeing that, hence the current increased levels of agentic adoption. And if you don't adapt to the times, well, we all know the story of Kodak and Blockbuster.

The Bloated Org Problem

Let's talk about how org structures are typically set up today. Humans need job satisfaction. They need a pathway to promotion. And they strive for job titles. Getting a leveled-up job title provides dopamine, especially when getting recognition on social media channels like LinkedIn. But this very human requirement has caused org structures to be bloated, layered with management, and from times I have seen extremely unhealthy management-to-IC ratios. The thing is, companies don't want to lose employees who have serious knowledge and skillset, hence the layers of promoted management. You end up with Directors who were great ICs, managing people they probably shouldn't be managing, in roles that were created to retain rather than to operate.

In this example, you can see while collapsed there are some clear definitions of the functions at the VP level, but it becomes off the beaten track when expanded. 5 layers of hierarchy. 22 management roles. And every single decision, escalation, and piece of communication has to travel up and down that chain. I fully understand that certain competitive needs are required to build out specialised teams and roles, but it does get complicated when staff turnover is high and new strategy and leadership comes in. I'm sure we've all experienced some level of dysfunction because of it.

Enter the Agentic Org Structure

That is why the decision makers and strategy teams I've been speaking with are preparing, and in some cases already changing up, the org structures to work around agentic agents being the core of the workers, with humans observing, handling exceptions, improving the architecture of agents, and focusing on strategy.

Here's where the new roles come in.

Agent Operators

These roles are called Agent Operators, and they are here to keep an eye on specified processes that agents are responsible for. If something goes wrong, they're here to deal with it. They are typically a very strategic and experienced knowledge-based employee who understands the process inside out and can add more value by being strategic rather than being a process doer.

Typically, operators look after a set of grouped processes where they have specialist knowledge. One operator would typically look after a set of processes that a team of 4 or more would've previously handled. Think about that for a second. One experienced, strategic person replacing an entire layer of management and execution, because the agents are doing the heavy lifting and that person is there to observe, optimise, and intervene when needed.

Agent Analysts

Depending on the operator's background or how critical the processes are, they might also have an Agent Analyst who can help with the refining of the agents, the research into new models, benchmarking performance, and continuously improving the agent architecture. These are your tinkerers, the people who love getting under the hood and making things run better.

Agent Directors

Then we have the Agent Director, who looks after teams of operators and analysts to help translate direction from the C-level and strategy teams into operational reality. They're the bridge between "here's where the business needs to go" and "here's how our agents and operators are going to get us there."

A Real Example: The Finance Team

To put this into perspective, I've seen a finance team that had 11 people, your typical setup of managers, senior accountants, junior accountants, and AP/AR processors. The bulk of the work was reconciliation, invoice processing, expense management, and reporting. Repetitive, rules-based, and honestly, not where you want your best finance minds spending their time.

That team was reduced to 2 people. An Agent Operator who acts as the decision maker, has deep finance knowledge, understands the end-to-end process, and steps in when something needs a human call. And an Agent Analyst who handles the minor exceptions, monitors agent performance, and is constantly refining and improving the agents themselves. The agents do the heavy lifting, the processing, the matching, the flagging, the reporting. 9 roles replaced, not because those people weren't good at their jobs, but because agents are simply faster, more consistent, and don't need sleep.

The operator isn't drowning in spreadsheets anymore. They're making strategic decisions, spotting patterns the agents surface, and actually adding value at a level they probably never had the bandwidth to before. That's the shift. You're not just cutting cost, you're unlocking the potential of the people who remain.

What This Actually Changes

But as you can see from this example, we've already removed layers of management and bureaucracy. The org goes from 5 layers to 3. The team members get to focus purely on performance, observability, and strategising with new recommendations. And the people who were previously stuck being process doers? They can be redeployed to where they actually add value, in execution, strategy, and growth.

No more empire building. No more layers of management created to keep people happy. No more siloed departments where communication goes through 4 levels of approval before anything gets done. The structure is leaner, flatter, and built around output rather than hierarchy.

The Reality Check

Agents are not at all set and forget. They're not going to replace C-Suites, sales teams, or provide strategy anytime soon. But what they can offer you right now is the removal of bloated and layered management org structures, increased efficiency, and more free capital to focus on execution, strategy, and delivery.

Even right now, I've deployed agents to handle my email organisation, my scheduling, and building out to-do lists, and all of a sudden I have more productive hours to do things at work that actually move the needle. This concept is the same for organisations that adopt agents where it makes sense. Free up the time. Free up the money. Spend it on what makes the company grow.

The companies I'm talking to aren't asking "should we adopt agents?" anymore. They're asking "how do we restructure to get the most out of them?" And that shift in mindset? That's where the competitive edge is being built right now.

I'm going to be doing more research on the new roles that are being created off the back of agentic automation. If you're currently in one of these roles, or you're making the strategic decisions to make it happen within your organisation, I would love to chat. Reach out, I'm all ears.

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