Since the invention of the organizational chart in the 1850s, company structures have changed little – they are hierarchical and consist of many layers of managers and decision-makers. This is because we are constrained by the limits of human intelligence and attention when it comes to managing and controlling workflow. AI can change this. In enormous language models (LLM) we are dealing with a fresh, alien form of intelligence that, however, acted primarily as an assistant at the individual level. In 2025, we will start to see the first organizations powered by a combination of humans and artificial intelligence working together.
This shift represents a fundamental shift in the way we structure and run our companies and institutions. While the integration of AI into our daily lives has been rapid (AI assistants are one of the fastest product adoptions in history), organizations have seen constrained benefits so far. However, the coming year will be a turning point when artificial intelligence will cease to be a tool for increasing individual productivity and will become a key element of organizational design and strategy.
In 2025, forward-thinking companies will begin to reimagine their entire organizational structure, processes and culture based on the symbiotic relationship between humans and artificial intelligence. It’s not just about automating tasks or enhancing human capabilities; it’s about creating entirely fresh ways of working that leverage the unique strengths of humans and artificial intelligence. The key to unlocking the true power of LLM is to move beyond individual utilize cases and move to integration at the organizational level. While we’ve seen impressive results from people using AI assistants for tasks like writing, coding, and analysis, the real transformation will come when entire organizations are built around human-AI collaboration.
Startups are leading the way. Venture capitalists report a growing trend of portfolio companies promising to maintain lean teams of no more than about 30 people and relying on artificial intelligence to scale their operations without classic overhead costs. However, the benefits of this approach can be even more significant for enormous, established organizations. These companies have the potential to leverage AI to overcome inefficiencies, unlock fresh growth opportunities with existing talent, and leverage the collective intelligence of their employees in ways never before possible.
In 2025, we will see a surge in the number of “AI-native” startups that build their entire operating model around human-AI collaboration from day one. These companies will be characterized by tiny, highly skilled human teams working with sophisticated artificial intelligence systems to achieve results comparable to those of much larger classic organizations.
For larger companies, the journey to an AI-integrated organization will be more sophisticated, but potentially more rewarding. These organizations will need to undertake significant research and development efforts to understand how to best utilize AI in their specific context. This process will reveal an essential truth: because AI works less like classic software and more like a person (even if it isn’t one), there is no reason to assume that IT has the best AI prompts or any particular insight into the most effective uses of AI in the organization.
So while IT will certainly play a key role in implementing and maintaining AI systems, the actual utilize cases and innovations will come from employees and managers in all departments who discover opportunities to utilize AI to improve the efficiency of their work. In fact, for enormous companies, any real benefits from AI will come from the expertise of their employees, which is needed to unlock the hidden knowledge and capabilities of AI systems. This awareness will democratize the utilize of AI in some organizations and they will lead the coming transformation.
The organizational structures created by AI integration will look much different than the classic hierarchies we are accustomed to. We may see the emergence of more fluid project-based structures, where teams form and quickly disband around specific goals, and artificial intelligence systems act as connectors and coordinators. Middle management roles may evolve to focus more on human-AI coordination rather than classic supervisory tasks. In 2025, the most successful companies will not be those with the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies, but those that can most effectively combine human and artificial intelligence to create fresh forms of value.