As more and more people realize that artificial intelligence (AI) is a new industrial revolution that may even surpass the original industrial revolution, it means that most companies will be affected by AI in the future. In fact, the rise of companies as an organizational form is closely related to the industrial revolution. Similarly, new technological revolutions will also drive the revolution of organizational structure.
Now, although AI is still in its infancy, its impact has begun to emerge. One significant change is the concept of high-level talent such as “experts.” Today, with the help of AI, ordinary people can also reach the skill level of “experts” in traditional concepts. Being “Good” is no longer enough to call yourself an “expert” unless you can achieve “Great.” This is the so-called concept of “technological equality.” For some “Good” people, this does not seem like a “good thing.” But for most people, this is indeed a good thing. It means that their chances of achieving career success have greatly increased.
The direct impact of this is that the possibility of small team innovation success is increasing and the bottom line for entrepreneurship is getting lower. In the past, if you wanted to develop an app, you needed a product manager, project manager, interaction designer, visual designer, operations, and various front-end and back-end software engineers. This is a large cost. More importantly, as a startup company that has just started, you may not even be able to find “Good” talent. But now, even ordinary people can write high-quality code and design beautiful interfaces with the help of AI. The rules of running a company have changed.
Many visionary people have noticed this change. In their view, AI can change many fields. It is still only the beginning of the AI revolution now, but almost every field has opportunities for disruption. For them, it can be said that there are gold mines everywhere now. Obviously, faced with such a great opportunity, these people will consider starting a business.
On the other hand, the organizational structure of traditional enterprises is pyramid-shaped. Therefore many professional technical or management personnel working in large companies once they reach 35-40 years old if they have not been promoted to senior positions will face the so-called “35-year-old phenomenon.” They have to be forced to leave the company. As a result more and more people will realize that entrepreneurship is both possible and necessary.
The impact of AI is great whether you have felt it or not change is happening. A significant trend is that in work that requires humans to complete low-end work will become less and less while high-end opportunities will become more and more challenging and opportunities are forcing changes in organizational structure. Instead of letting employees leave after starting their own businesses and becoming competitors to the company it is better to adapt to changes early and actively change the organizational structure to provide an incubation environment for innovation and entrepreneurship within the enterprise.
Therefore in the AI era some management scholars advocate using a new theory called “The Right-Brained Organization” to manage enterprises one of whose core methods is to form “internal and external entrepreneurial teams.” The so-called “external entrepreneurial team” actually means establishing a new subsidiary but this company will allow your employees to have equity or options. The so-called “internal entrepreneurial team” also known as a “skunkworks” is a management method for autonomous teams. In short it can be understood as a “company within a company.” The team leader often has relatively high autonomy and the team can also not follow the company’s rules and regulations.
Many traditional large enterprises often rely on functional organizations such as R&D centers product departments etc. to promote innovation. Mature businesses of large companies often need to use strict and systematic processes and systems to manage them. But if you use the same method for innovative businesses it will stifle team creativity and enthusiasm. This is why many large companies are weak in innovation organizationally. By forming “internal and external entrepreneurial teams” you can bypass the restrictions of large company organizational systems. Especially small teams have short decision-making chains can respond quickly to market changes and make mistakes quickly. Thus forming an “innovation accelerator” within a large company system.
More importantly, using this model can establish an independent incentive mechanism for innovators within the company. The core issue of enterprise management is the incentive mechanism. Under this new model, if an entrepreneurial company goes public, it can allow internal entrepreneurs to obtain income far exceeding wages. At the same time, using this internal and external entrepreneurship model, entrepreneurs can also fully utilize their mother company’s resources, reducing entrepreneurial risks while providing protection for internal entrepreneurs at a certain level, reducing their worries about starting a business. This new model can greatly mobilize the enthusiasm of employees. In many large companies at home and abroad, “internal and external entrepreneurial teams” have become the mainstream management model for “disruptive innovation.” For example, Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI uses this model.
The impact is not only that. As more and more internal and external entrepreneurial teams incubate successfully, companies will be able to meet users’ increasingly personalized needs through these entrepreneurial teams. This provides a completely different business model than before. Large companies will transform into platforms to provide brand, technology, computing power and other general service support for various entrepreneurial teams. The more entrepreneurial teams there are, the better the personalized service will be, and the proportion of this general business in the enterprise will be relatively less. That is to say, in the AI era, traditional large companies will “lighten up.”
As a large number of bottom-level work in the management decision pyramid is transferred to AI, the talent structure of enterprises will also change to an “inverted pyramid.” In this new management system, there is no longer only one CEO in charge of a large enterprise. On the contrary, the top management of the enterprise will be composed of a large number of “CEOs” of internal and external entrepreneurial teams. According to the theory of “The Right-Brained Organization,” this change actually reflects a new trend: employees will become customers.
Therefore, the 35-year-old phenomenon will become a 35-year-old opportunity. The golden age for scientists and engineers is 25-35 years old but the golden age for managers is actually 35 years old and beyond. Due to the increase in senior management positions in future enterprises on the job market people over 35 years old will turn from disadvantage to advantage.
In the face of AI “left-brained” enterprises think from a numerical perspective. They use AI to replace “Good” talent. Indeed these people used to need to pay high remuneration to enterprises. By using AI to let “ordinary employees” complete the work of “experts.” These people were replaced and the cost of the enterprise seemed to be reduced.
But “The Right-Brained Organization” helps employees grow based on empathy. They realize that although entrepreneurship originates from our inner desire it is really environment that makes people act. Entrepreneurship is an opportunity but there is also pressure at the same time. It is this “environmental” pressure that can help employees complete their transformation from “Good” to “Great.”
AI can reduce costs for “left-brained organizations” and even become good from ordinary. But AI can make “The Right-Brained Organization” go from “Good” to “Great!” Darwin once said: “Those who survive are not the strongest or smartest but those who can cope with challenges!” AI brings challenges as well as opportunities for enterprises who can first discover new AI business model rules who can truly gain talent and cost advantages and win in competition.
At the same time promoting the transformation of corporate organizational structure allowing more and more people who would not have started their own businesses such as experienced middle-aged people to become entrepreneurs not only allows them to achieve their own life sublimation but also promotes their own high-speed development of enterprises and even promotes society as a whole The economy takes off and creates more jobs for young people.
For entrepreneurs AI is not a multiple-choice question AI is a required question!