Most companies already run themselves. This is not news. It’s simply what happens when no one knows who’s responsible for anything.
The modern corporation is less an organization and more a crowded elevator: everyone inside, no one speaking, all of them hoping someone else presses the right button.
Now we’re told that “agentic AI” will run businesses. People say this as if it’s shocking. I find it charming. Of course software will run companies. People barely do.
Who’s in Control? Outlook.
The average workplace is held together by three things: calendars, confusion, and the hope that someone—anyone—will answer an email. If you think human leadership is in charge, try canceling a recurring meeting. You cannot. I have tried. You’ll learn very quickly who truly wields power. It’s not the CEO. It’s Outlook.
I once worked for someone who spent his entire day managing his calendar. Not the meetings themselves. The calendar. He would move meetings around like furniture. “Can we push this to Thursday?” No, we cannot. Thursday is worse. But he persisted. This is what passes for leadership. The idea that a piece of software might replace him does not frighten me.
At Least Software Doesn’t Pretend to Be Busy
The idea that autonomous agents might coordinate workflows should relieve us. At least software does not spend 40% of its life “in back-to-back meetings.” This phrase alone—”back-to-back meetings”—should disqualify someone from making decisions. You’re in meetings all day. Fine. Then you’re not working. You’re attending meetings. These are not the same thing.
People insist that humans bring creativity, judgment, and empathy to the workplace. Have these people seen a budget cycle? I have. There is no creativity. There is a spreadsheet someone made in 2011 that we still use. There is no judgment. There is a process. And there is no empathy. There is a deadline.
Agentic AI promises consistency. A procurement agent negotiates without losing its temper. A finance agent closes books without announcing it’s taking a week in Turks and Caicos. I don’t know where Turks and Caicos is, but someone is always going there during month-end close.
The Human Touch Is a Myth We Tell Ourselves
Critics worry agents will replace the “human touch.” I agree this is possible. But only because no one can find it now. If the human touch were real, customer service would not feel like being trapped in a Choose Your Own Adventure book written by Kafka. You press 1 for English. You press 4 for billing. You press 9 to speak to a representative. You are disconnected. This is the human touch.
I myself have better luck with chatbots. At least they don’t put you on hold to “look something up,” which is what people say when they’re eating lunch.
Your Job Is Already Half-Done by Machines Anyway
Some people fear losing their jobs. I understand this. I myself have never had a job I was afraid of losing, but I understand the concept. These people needn’t worry. Most of them are already doing work computers outperform: copying information, updating trackers, confirming that yes, the meeting is still happening. The machines aren’t taking your job. They’re taking the parts of it you openly resent.
I know this because I have heard people complain. “I spent all morning updating the tracker.” Good. Stop. Let the machine update the tracker. You don’t want to update the tracker. No one has ever wanted to update the tracker. This is not fulfilling work. This is not what you dreamed of doing when you were seven years old.
The other fear is that autonomous systems will make decisions. Again, I admire this concern. It assumes we currently know who makes decisions. In my experience, decisions occur when one person misreads an email and everyone else is too tired to correct them. At least agents keep logs. Try arguing with a timestamp. You cannot. The timestamp is correct. You are not.
What Humans Should Actually Be Doing (But Aren’t)
Humans should handle judgment, vision, taste, ethics. Machines should handle everything that prevents humans from displaying any of those things. This seems obvious. But we live in a world where people say “Let’s take this offline,” which means absolutely nothing. The machines can handle everything that involves saying “Let’s take this offline.”
Picture a company where processes run the same way twice. Where handoffs don’t resemble hostage exchanges. Where no one says “circling back” because nothing is orbiting endlessly. This is the self-running organization. It will feel radical only because we’ve grown accustomed to chaos. We’ve mistaken chaos for normalcy. This is a mistake.
The Company Has No Soul to Lose
Some worry this future will feel soulless. I assure you: the present scarcely overflows with soul. Most companies have the emotional warmth of a tax document. I have sat in rooms where people discuss “core values” for three hours. The core values are always the same: integrity, innovation, excellence. No one has ever worked at a company whose core value is “mediocrity” or “getting through the day.” And yet.
Replacing a quarterly review with an automated dashboard will not diminish the human spirit. It will simply remove several pastries. Have you been to these reviews? There are pastries. No one eats them. They sit there, growing stale, like the conversation.
Let the Machines Try (We’re Not Doing Great)
The real miracle will be what happens to workers. Once relieved of drudgery, they may rediscover higher-order skills: thinking, creating, maybe even listening. I am not optimistic. But the possibility exists.
So yes—let the machines run the place. They cannot possibly do worse. When the first fully autonomous company arrives, everyone will praise it as a technological triumph. But the truth will be simpler. The company has been running itself for years. The only new development is that the software is finally doing it on purpose.
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureOfWork #AITrends #AIAgents #Automation #DigitalTransformation #TechLeadership #Innovation
