Good morning. AI agents may be getting smarter, but human managers are still indispensable.
At the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, in a panel session hosted by Workday, executives said the real shift is that software is stripping out drudgery and redefining good management as coaching, judgment, and emotional leadership rather than task supervision.
Canva’s head of AI research, Stefano Corazza, said the company’s goal is to build AI around people to give them “superpowers,” not to replace managers’ strategic decision-making or soft skills.
Aashna Kircher, group general manager in the Office of the CHRO at Workday, said many managers still spend too much time on tedious tasks. AI agents can remove much of that burden, but companies must also reset expectations, hold managers accountable, and train them in judgment, Kircher explained. She suggested companies should reflect on questions such as: “What does it mean to be the best coach or the best team enabler? What are the skill sets that you now have to grow in your teams in an era of AI, where the expectation is judgment, decision-making, and creativity?”
Where humans must still lead
