The organizational chart of the future could look very different from the one hanging on your company’s wall today. Instead of showing who reports to whom, an AI-native org chart could map which employees and AI agents have access to which systems, who can spend from which budgets, and who gets consulted on which projects.
That’s the vision MIT professor Paul Cheek is pitching to CHROs as companies rapidly integrate AI into their workforces. Cheek argues that HR leaders have an opportunity to take ownership of how humans and AI agents are organized across the enterprise—and to make AI literacy a core part of that transformation.
A new study from Cheek’s independent research organization, the AI-Driven Enterprise Institute, found that just over 30% of executives at S&P 500 companies are AI-literate. That group is achieving 78% stronger AI execution than their peers, according to the study.
Cheek says the first step for CHROs is investing in AI training and upskilling for executives and employees. The next is rethinking the org chart.
“The CHRO title itself needs to change from managing headcount to auditing whether a given role needs a human’s judgment or an AI agent’s uptime,” Cheek says.
In Cheek’s model, the org chart would become a dynamic, living document that changes as AI agents are added, retired, or even build their own agents. It would track access to everything from social media accounts to Salesforce, as well as spending authority and decision-making responsibilities.
Cheek acknowledges that he hasn’t yet found a company that has implemented this kind of technologically-advanced org chart. But he believes AI could help generate one—and he has created his own prototype using AI.
Cheek’s pitch to CHROs is three-fold: Learn how AI works, teach those skills across the company, and rethink which work should be done by people and which should be done by AI. The CHROs who take on that job, he says, are going to “emerge from the woodwork as the most influential and the most important strategic leader in the organization.”
Kristin Stoller
Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media
[email protected]
Fortune Office Hours
This week, Barbara Matthews, chief people officer at global payroll company Remote, answers your burning workplace questions. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: I sometimes stay late at work, and a few times a month I’ve noticed some of our leadership drinking. Sometimes they are alone, sometimes they are in small groups in a closed conference room. I get that this used to be normal workplace culture, but it feels out of step with how most modern offices operate, especially during work hours.
Here’s the complicating factor: one of the people I’ve seen drinking is in HR. That’s normally who I’d go to with a concern like this, which makes it hard to know where to turn. I don’t want to seem like I’m overreacting to something that might just be “how it’s always been done,” but it doesn’t sit right with me, especially from someone in a role meant to uphold workplace standards. Is this worth raising? And if so, who do I talk to when HR itself is part of the issue?
A: Honestly, this one’s contextual. It depends on your office culture, the seniority of the HR person involved, and what your employee handbook actually says. But I’ll say this: it’s completely normal to feel off-kilter watching leaders, especially someone in HR, engage in behavior that could conflict with workplace policy. That creates a real conflict of interest, and it erodes trust in how company standards get enforced.
Before deciding whether this is something to escalate, I’d check the handbook for what it says about alcohol on the premises, and think about policy versus optics. Is this an actual violation, or is it more about perception and the liability that comes with it?
I’d also think about your own risk here. If the behavior isn’t affecting your safety, your workload, or your day-to-day, it’s fair to ask what being the one to raise it could cost you politically, even though retaliation shouldn’t happen in a healthy company. That’s not a reason to stay silent, just something to go in aware of.
Even though an HR person is involved in this case, you’re not stuck. Most companies have a whistleblower or compliance hotline (EthicsPoint is a common one), legal if you have an internal team, or someone in leadership or HR you trust who wasn’t in the room. Even a confidential one-to-one, just “I observed this, wanted to share it,” could be helpful.
Whatever you do: stick to facts, not assumptions. Park your personal judgment, even if you have some, and focus on framing your concern around workplace safety, policy, and liability.
Have a workplace situation that you’re unsure how to navigate or a scenario worth unpacking? Send it our way via this form.
Watercooler
A round-up of the most important HR headlines from Fortune and beyond.
Window workers. Japanese companies are quietly paying thousands of older employees to sit by a window and do nothing. Fortune
Iced coffee debate. Interview etiquette remains increasingly contentious, as recruiters disagree on which rules to keep. Washington Post
Pay plan. Despite the growing salary transparency movement, few companies have the systems or trained managers to support it. Inc.
