HR leaders have a choice about whether to get ahead of this view or manage the wreckage
Brian Chesky does not deal in euphemism. The Airbnb co-founder and CEO, 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 with impact because it named something many workers have already sensed. The management layer that coordinates without contributing - that formats reports for upward consumption and runs recurring status check-ins - is under pressure at nearly every large organization deploying AI at scale. Chesky simply said out loud that it would disappear.
For American HR leaders, the question is not whether to take the comment seriously. It is whether to treat it as a restructuring mandate or a development brief.
What Chesky said - and what he left out
The full context is more nuanced than the headline suggests.
Chesky's preferred model is the "hybrid people manager" or "manager IC" - an individual contributor who also leads, and whose authority derives from expertise and direct contribution to the work. His reference point was Jony Ive: a leader whose influence came from deep product engagement, not a position in a hierarchy.
He pointed to Airbnb as a live case study. Design and engineering leaders are "going back to coding or using Claude Code," Anthropic's AI-powered coding tool. AI now generates nearly 60 percent of the code Airbnb engineers produce. The managers succeeding in that environment, he said, are those in the work.
READ MORE: Most organizations "dangerously underprepared" for AI despite widespread adoption
Crucially, Chesky maintained that relationship-building still matters - regular check-ins, genuine investment in direct reports. What he is discarding is managerial authority without contribution: the capacity to supervise without doing.
A consensus view at the top
Chesky would be easier to dismiss if he were an outlier. He is not. Jack Dorsey eliminated Block's "permanent middle management layer." Coinbase is cutting 14 percent of its workforce while simultaneously flattening to five organizational layers below the CEO, with every leader required to be a "strong and active contributor." Gartner forecasts that by 2026, 20 percent of organizations will use AI to eliminate more than half of their middle management positions.
HRD America has previously reported on how Zuckerberg's similar move to flatten Meta's management layers produced a leaner organization structure but significant cultural disruption - a cautionary case study that preceded the current AI-driven restructuring wave by several years. The pattern is not new. The velocity is.
READ MORE: In the new layoff era, AI is the 'scapegoat' and the workforce is the bet
The American labor market data adds context. HRD America has reported that AI and reorganization are expected to fuel the majority of redundancies in 2026, with companies "rebalancing" their workforces - cutting in areas no longer aligned with near-term priorities while hiring aggressively in functions tied to AI transformation. Middle management, as the layer most obviously caught between AI's capacity for coordination and the need for genuine domain expertise, is the most directly exposed.
The research is more complicated
The evidence base on middle management and AI is more nuanced than the CEO consensus suggests.
Gartner's survey of more than 3,000 managers found that AI-driven management tools - properly implemented - reduced administrative workload and gave managers more time for coaching and team development. The finding is not that managers become unnecessary when AI handles their administrative overhead. It is that they become more valuable, if they are developed to use that freed-up capacity for the work only humans do well.
HRD America has reported that Gartner's HR priorities for 2026 explicitly call on CHROs to help leaders "routinize" change, reset leader expectations, and ensure employees are supported through AI transformation. That is a management development mandate, not a management elimination mandate. The distinction matters enormously for how HR should respond to Chesky's challenge.
HRD has also reported that most organizations are "missing the opportunity" for end-to-end AI transformation, with too many still treating AI as a technology project rather than a business and people transformation. The solution, IBM Consulting's Francesco Brenna argues, is "re-architecting how the process is executed, redesigning the user experience, orchestrating agents end-to-end." That kind of transformation requires manager champions who understand the work and can lead teams through it. It does not get easier with fewer managers. It gets harder.
The HR response
Chesky is describing a destination. The path belongs to HR. Several practical implications follow.
Leadership development pipelines need to be rebuilt around the player-coach model. Succession planning that identifies future leaders primarily through their people management performance is calibrated for the old model. The capability frameworks organizations are building need to weight domain expertise, AI fluency, and direct contribution as highly as - and in many cases, more highly than - traditional management skills.
HRD America has reported that half of Gen Z workers would consider quitting if they are not provided with generative AI training. The manager who cannot model AI use, field questions about it, and create space for experimentation is failing the expectations of the workforce. That is a management development problem that HR owns.
HRD has also reported that most organizations are "dangerously underprepared" for AI despite widespread adoption - with low AI literacy, lack of feedback loops, and concerns about AI output quality holding back integration. The manager in the middle of those problems is the critical variable. Reduce the management layer without closing those gaps and you have not solved the problem. You have removed the person most capable of solving it.
The meeting manager is not over. The meeting-only manager is. That distinction is the work - and it belongs to HR.
