Brian Chesky's blunt verdict on middle management is landing hard – and Australia's readiness gap makes it urgent
Brian Chesky does not deal in euphemism. The Airbnb co-founder and chief executive, speaking on the Invest Like the Best podcast earlier this month, identified two categories of worker he believes will not survive the transition to an AI-enabled workplace: people who refuse to adapt, and people managers whose entire contribution is managing people.
"I do not think people managers will have any value in the future," Chesky said. "When I mean people managers, I mean people that only manage people. You cannot just be these managers where you are people's therapists, and you are just doing meetings, you are doing one-on-ones."
The remark landed hard in part because it named something already being felt. The layer of management that coordinates rather than contributes – that formats information for upward consumption and schedules recurring status meetings – is under pressure in nearly every organisation that has begun deploying AI in earnest. Chesky simply said it would disappear.
For Australian HR leaders, the question is not whether they agree with him. It is whether they are ahead of the curve or behind it.
What Chesky actually said – and what he did not
The full context matters, because the headline version – "people managers are finished" – is both accurate and incomplete.
Chesky's preferred model is what he calls a "hybrid people manager" or "manager IC" – an individual contributor who also leads people, and whose authority comes from expertise and proximity to the work rather than from the act of managing itself. His example was Jony Ive, the former Apple chief design officer: a leader whose influence derived from deep engagement with the product, not from an org chart position.
He pointed to Airbnb as a live example of the transition. Design and engineering leaders are "going back to coding or using Claude Code," the AI-powered coding assistant from Anthropic. AI now generates nearly 60 per cent of Airbnb's code. The managers thriving, Chesky said, are those in the work – not watching others do it.
He was careful to distinguish between the role becoming less valuable and the person becoming less valuable. His message to individuals: "The companies that are prepared to change and transform are the companies that are going to benefit from AI. And if you do not change, you are going to be disrupted."
A consensus, not an outlier
Chesky's remarks would be easier to dismiss if he were alone. He is not. Jack Dorsey of Block has declared there is "no need for a permanent middle management layer." Coinbase, cutting 14 per cent of its workforce, is simultaneously flattening to five layers below the CEO with every leader required to be a "strong and active contributor." Gartner predicts that by 2026, 20 per cent of organisations will use AI to eliminate more than half of their middle management positions.
In Australia, the pressure is already visible. Tech layoffs linked to AI are accelerating rapidly, with around 9,238 Australian jobs connected directly to AI adoption, automation, or organisational restructuring tied to those technologies. Sydney now ranks third globally – behind San Francisco and Seattle – for the absolute number of jobs cut.
The urgency is compounded by a specific local readiness gap. Only 41 per cent of Australian workers report that their workplace is prepared for AI, according to Salesforce and Morning Consult research spanning more than 1,100 Australians. That figure sits directly beneath the management challenge Chesky is describing: if the people responsible for developing and supporting managers are themselves unprepared, the transition he is demanding cannot happen in any organised way.
Australian middle managers are, in many cases, already under strain. Middle managers are under pressure from hybrid work, compliance, AI rollout, and wellbeing demands, according to Harrison Human Resources' analysis of the 2025–26 landscape. While 84 per cent of Australians in office roles now use AI at work – with more than a quarter using it daily – only 35 per cent of all workers have received formal training, and 72 per cent fear breaching data or regulatory rules. Chesky's suggestion that managers simply evolve or be replaced papers over the development investment required to make that evolution possible.
The Australian governance vacuum
Australia's particular challenge is not scepticism about AI – it is the gap between adoption and governance. A surge in "shadow AI" – employee use of unauthorised AI platforms bypassing security protocols – is exposing Australian companies to serious compliance and data risks, with 70 per cent of organisations having moderate to no visibility into what AI tools are being used.
More than one in three Australian professionals are regularly uploading sensitive company data to unsanctioned AI tools, and smaller businesses are particularly vulnerable – only 30 per cent of companies with fewer than 250 employees feel fully equipped to assess AI risks.
The managers who are supposed to be governing that behaviour – approving tools, setting expectations, modelling responsible use – are, in many cases, the least AI-capable people in the room. That inversion is not a cultural accident. It is what happens when organisations roll out AI as a technology programme rather than a people strategy. Gartner's Australian HR analysis warns that "the hype around AI has resulted in organisations attempting to adopt the technology at breakneck speeds," but that "the highly touted productivity and business benefits don't always materialise" when change management and workforce readiness are neglected.
What HR must resist – and what it must do
The tech CEO consensus on middle management is consistent and loud. But there is a dimension of this debate that deserves a counter-argument, and Australian HR leaders are well placed to make it.
Frontline leaders and middle managers remain the first point of contact with the majority of the organisation – the people who can make or break culture and change efforts. Strip that layer out without replacing the connective function it serves and you do not get a leaner, faster organisation. You get one where strategy and execution have lost their translator.
Mercer data shows that 53 per cent of Australian employees and 46 per cent of HR leaders are looking to their organisation to teach them the skills they need should their roles be affected by AI. That is not a passive expectation. It is a mandate for HR to lead capability investment, not just restructuring.
The player-coach model Chesky describes is achievable in Australian workplaces. But it requires intentional development, not just a change to reporting lines. The meeting manager is not over. The meeting-only manager is. That distinction is the work.
